


Agent Maria Hill's School of Modern Life

by GoddessofThunder (navigatio)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adjustment Period, Babysitting, Deleted Scenes, Gen, It's NOT babysitting!, Manly Tears, Modern Life, No Smut, No pairings - Freeform, Rule 34, Sarcastic Maria Hill, Steve being adorable, sad Steve Rogers, sadness overdose, sticker shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-10-30 07:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10871571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navigatio/pseuds/GoddessofThunder
Summary: Agent Maria Hill's School of Modern LifeCourse title: Life in the 21st Century 101Instructor: Deputy Director M. HillCourse Location: (redacted)Course length: One week, or longer if the student is a complete idiotThis course is intended for 90 year-old supersoldiers preparing to enter life in the 21st century. Course prerequisites include one (1) dose of superserum, a heroic “death” in combat, and 65+ years frozen in the arctic. Students will be automatically enrolled in this course following the completion of the thawing process.Unit 1: Shopping for Furniture and Sh!t like thatUnit 1: Independent practiceUnit 2: Finances and not dropping dead when you find out you're suddenly a millionaire.Unit 2: Independent practiceUnit 3: Grocery shopping (Don't Panic)Supplemental lesson: getting around in the cityUnit 4: Understanding the basics of modern appliancesUnit 4: Independent practiceUnit 5: cell phones and the internet and Rule 34 (Oh my!)Unit 5: Independent practiceUnit 6: Yeah, well, fashions are stupidUnit 6: Not-so-independent PracticeUnit 7: Getting around on the subwayLast chapter up, COMPLETE!





	1. Prologue and Course Syllabus

**Author's Note:**

> This story fits neatly into the gap between the end of Captain America: TFA and the deleted scenes from the beginning of Avengers Assemble. It is a multi-chapter fic with probably way too much detail. I can't STAAAAAHP.
> 
> Warning: Agent Hill has a little problem with LANGUAGE. Sad Steve does not approve.

Prologue and course syllabus

 

 

June 25, 2012

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: SR re-entry assignment

 

New assignment: Pick up S. from (redacted) June 27, 0700 hrs. Deliver to apartment at (redacted). Your mission over the next week is to debrief S. and introduce him to modern life. Provide whatever training necessary for him to function independently. Prepare him for future missions. Provide daily reports on his progress and fitness for resuming active duty.

 

N.

* * *

 

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: SR re-entry assignment

 

You cannot be serious. Do I need to remind you I’m not a babysitter? 

 

M.

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: SR re-entry assignment

 

I am serious.

 

N. 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: SR re-entry assignment

 

This is beneath my paygrade. Send a junior officer. Or Coulson. He’d do it for free.

 

M.

* * *

 

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: SR re-entry assignment

 

I don’t need to explain myself to you, but I will say that this assignment is of utmost importance. I need someone I can trust to assess the ability of S. to function as an operative in future missions. You are the right person for the job.

 

N.

* * *

 

Agent Maria Hill’s School of Modern Life

 

**Course title** : Life in the 21st Century 101

 

**Instructor** : Deputy Director M. Hill

**Course Location** : (redacted)

**Course length** : One week, or longer if the student is a complete idiot

**Course dates** : June 27-July 3, 2012

 

**Syllabus** : This course is intended for 90 year-old supersoldiers preparing to enter life in the 21st century. Course prerequisites include one (1) dose of superserum, a heroic “death” in combat, and 65+ years frozen in the arctic. Students will be automatically enrolled in this course following the completion of the thawing process.

 

The following units are covered:

**Unit 1: Shopping for furniture and shit like that.**  

Student will choose furnishings for his new apartment. Yes, the student has an apartment. Stop asking stupid questions.

 

**Unit 2: Finances and not dropping dead when you find out you’re suddenly a millionaire.**

Student has money. Go nuts.

 

**Unit 3: Panic at the grocery store**

One stop shopping, baby. Yes, there are lots of choices. Student will stop gawking like a newborn and pick some fruit already.

 

**Supplemental lesson: Getting around in the city, part 1**

Student will get himself home if he gets lost. . . Ok, fine, the instructor will pick Student up, if Student promises not to cry.

 

**Unit 4: Understanding the basics of modern appliances**

Student will learn how to hook up and operate modern appliances. Ok, never mind. The student will sit on the couch and not touch anything while the Instructor hooks everything up.

 

**Unit 5: Introduction to the Internet**

The Student will learn how to operate the phone and navigate the internet. Student will be accidentally introduced to Rule 34. The instructor is very sorry.

 

**Unit 6: clothes shopping**

Student will get over the prices and just pick some clothes. Really, it’s not that hard. Oh, God, stop crying. Please. Student will stop breaking the Instructor’s heart with those pathetic puppy-dog eyes.

 

**Unit 7: Getting around in the city, part 2**

Student will learn to navigate the New York Subway system. Student will refrain from picking fights. Ok, fights to defend a lady are acceptable. No, the Instructor does not need defending. The Instructor will kick that pendejo’s ass herself. Student is welcome to assist. No, not like that.

 

* * *

 

(June 27, 2012, 0630 hrs)

 

His bag is packed and sitting by the front door of the cabin, and has been since before first light. Not that there is much in it: a single change of clothes (khakis, t-shirt that doesn’t fit right, underwear made from some weird stretchy material, socks, a lightweight jacket). A comb, toothbrush, toothpaste. Some sort of sticky hair gel that he hasn’t used. A small bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. None of it is his, not really. At least, he didn’t choose it. If he had, the shampoo wouldn’t smell so much like fake flowers that it makes him sick to his stomach. 

 

Tucked into a side pocket of the black duffel are a file folder containing a thin sheaf of briefings, and the pen and ink drawings he made to fill the long stretches of empty time in the past two weeks. There were no art supplies as such to be found in the cabin, but he had come across a lined notebook and pen in a drawer, and used them to make sketches of whatever he could remember of his life: his mother, scenes from his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, several of Peggy (somehow she always came out looking disappointed or angry), the tessaract, the Howling Commandos, Johan Schmidt (difficult to fully capture without a red pen, but it looks close enough to the creepy image that haunts his ever-present nightmares). He can’t bring himself to draw Bucky, not yet. The pain is too raw still.

 

Breakfast is toast in the oven, since there isn’t much else left. The eggs they left him are gone and the nurse (2nd Lt. Press, although she had told him repeatedly to call her Katherine) hadn’t brought more when she came yesterday on her daily rounds to take his vitals. Not that it matters. The butterflies in his stomach are putting up such a ruckus he isn’t sure he could keep anything more substantial down anyway.

 

While he scrapes the last of the fake butter over the toast, he reminds himself again that there is no need to be anxious. America is no longer at war, and apparently hasn’t been for years. He knows he was “asleep”, as Lt. Press calls it, (frozen, he calls it, and feels like some of the ice still lingers in his bones) for almost seventy years. He knows the date, although he has to repeat it to himself multiple times daily to try to convince himself that it is real. But Director Fury was a bit vague about exactly how long the country had been at peace. During his debriefing, Fury had tossed out the names of a few countries he had heard of but knew nothing about, until finally he just said something like “Well, World War Two has been over since 1945.” Which means he only missed it by less than a year. He could have been celebrating with Peggy, having a round with the Howling Commandoes, but instead he was locked in the ice, frozen and unaware, and missed everything.

 

Two weeks alone in this cabin (“safehouse”, Fury called it, although Steve can’t say he feels particularly _safe_ there) should have been just the thing to ease him into the idea that he is alive while everyone he knew and loved is dead. Director Fury said he could have “as long as he liked” to get his bearings and figure out what he wanted to do next, but apparently that came with an unspoken “or two weeks, whichever comes sooner.” He knows the solitude was meant to give him time to process and adjust, read the minimal briefings that had been shoved into his hands, but really it has just given him extra time to think, to ruminate, and with that rumination, the crippling anxiety that has plagued him his entire life pushed its way to the forefront, despite his attempts to quash it. What if, what if, what if. . . _“Paralysis through Analysis,”_ Bucky called it, usually while holding him down and roughly mussing his hair. _“Gotta stop thinking in circles, little buddy.”_

 

Fury told him an Agent Hill would be picking him up at 0700, but there is no clock at the cabin as far as he can find, so he has no idea how much longer he will have to wait. The sun rose while he was making the toast, which, as he had been told he is in New York, should be just before 0600 at this time of year. At least the sunrise has stayed the same, although everything else under the sun seems to have changed into something unrecognizable, foreign. . . terrifying, if he is being completely honest.

 

While he is washing his dishes, he hears the car coming up the winding driveway, long before he can see it. It’s moving fast: the engine whines and growls through the curves, and he can hear the clatter of gravel spitting out from the tires. A cloud of dust appears over the rise, and finally the car itself is visible, screeching around the final curve and skidding to a halt in front of the house. Almost immediately the door is flung open and a figure vaults out: a woman, wearing a form-fitting black jumpsuit, dark hair pulled up into a no-nonsense bun. A beautiful woman. Steve swallows hard. He doesn’t do well with women, especially beautiful women. Before the serum, they either ignored him completely, belittled him, or treated him like a child. After the serum, well, he never knew quite how to respond to the attention he was suddenly getting (and the apparent right they had felt to put their _hands_ on him) and usually ended up awkward and tongue-tied.

 

So far the only woman he’s interacted with in this. . . century is Lt. Press, and that was fine, mostly because he has been so confused, and she so kind and helpful, that he forgot to be nervous around her. Even when she was touching him, to take his temperature and pulse, it didn’t feel awkward, just comforting. But she’s done now, she told him yesterday she wouldn’t be back. Reassigned, she said, as if he’s just another impersonal chore instead of a human being.

 

As he is drying his hands, he hears her footsteps coming up the front steps—click click click—and then a rapid ratatatat of her knock on the door. No hesitation, no uncertainty. Brisk. Efficient. _Terrifying_.

 

He opens the door with the towel still in his hand, and takes an involuntary step back at her posture: arms tightly folded across her chest, mouth tight, jaw clenched. His fingers tighten around the towel and his mouth suddenly goes dry with anxiety.

 

“Agent Hill,” she barks without preamble. “Are you ready to go?”

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he responds, spine straightening automatically.

 

Her eyes flick downward to the towel dangling from his fist. “Do you want to put the towel away first?” she asks in a sharp voice.

 

He looks down at the towel, which he forgot he was still holding, and says quickly, “Yes, Ma’am” before darting toward the kitchen. When he returns, she is still standing just outside the door, but now she has his duffel over her shoulder.

 

“I can carry that,” he says quickly, reaching for the bag, but she just makes a face and starts down the steps without letting him take it. He pulls the door shut and hurries after her, because what sort of man is he if he makes a lady carry his bag for him? His ma would never have stood for it. “Ma’am? I can carry my own bag.”

 

She stops on the bottom step and whirls around, brows pulled together and mouth open as if to argue, but as her gaze sweeps over his face, she suddenly stops, shrugs, and hands the bag to him. “Whatever,” she says brusquely. As she turns back toward the car, she mutters something that sounds like “Fucking chivalry isn’t dead after all.”  Steve feels his guts twist because he obviously did something wrong, but has no idea what it might have been.

 

He hurries after her to open her door , but again he is too late because she is already sliding into the driver’s seat, both hands on the steering wheel, thumbs drumming out an impatient rhythm. He quickly tosses his duffel into the back and squeezes into the front passenger seat before she can drive away without him.

 

They take off with a screech of tires and a rattle of flying gravel. Steve’s foot presses automatically against an imaginary brake pedal. They are going much too fast for his comfort, but Agent Hill doesn’t even seem to notice his distress. She just stares straight ahead, expressionless. He keeps sneaking glances at her out of the corner of his eye, and quickly looking away again before she can catch him.

 

Several miles of this later, Steve swallows hard and finally ventures a question. “Ma’am? Where are we going?”

 

“Fury didn’t tell you?”

 

“No, Ma’am.”

 

“Son of a _bitch_.” (Steve tries not to wince at her language) “All right, I guess he left that up to me too. We got you an apartment in New York.”

 

He sits up straighter with a little jolt of interest at that news. Finally, something familiar. “Brooklyn?”

 

“North Brooklyn. Not exactly your old neighborhood, but close.”

 

“Oh.” He sinks back down into the seat again, but now keeps a careful watch out of the side window, just in case he sees something he recognizes. So far it has mostly been trees and farmlands and the occasional cow. He thinks perhaps he is upstate somewhere, but he has always been a city boy so all of this rural stuff pretty much looks alike to him. Just rolling hills and trees as far as the eye can see. Peaceful. He leans his forehead against the side window and lets his eyes slide shut. The whiny engine settles into a comforting hum. . .

 

He wakes with a start, hand flying out to grab for a falling Bucky, but instead it hits something hard. Where—? Oh, yeah, car. Window. Wrong century. Bucky has been dead for seventy years now, not that it makes the pain any less. He shoots an anxious glance over at Agent Hill, who is looking at him with her eyebrow raised.

 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, rolling his neck to work the crick out.

 

“You ok?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

She gives him a once-over, makes a sort of huffing sound, and turns her eyes back to the road. “Sure you are,” she says in a sarcastic voice. “You break a window in my car, it’s coming out of your bank account.”

 

“. . .All right.” What bank account? Last he checked, he had less than ten dollars stuffed in the bottom of his foot locker, but he has no idea where it is now.

 

She goes back to ignoring him, so he pushes himself up in his seat and peers out the window. The scenery has changed—instead of green trees and farmlands, it’s all gray and brown: concrete, brick, broken pavement with scraggly wilted blades of grass growing out of the cracks. This looks more like home, but still he can’t say he recognizes anything.

 

“Look this way,” Agent Hill says unexpectedly.

 

“Huh?” He turns to find her pointing out her side of windshield. When he cranes his neck, he suddenly gets a glimpse of a river (Harlem River, maybe?) and beyond that. . . oh GOD! “Is that. . . is that Manhattan?” he asks incredulously.

 

Her lips twist in a half-grin. “Yep.”

 

He can make out the tip of the Empire State Building, which he remembers as being constantly under construction. It looks like they finally finished it, but it is no longer the tallest building in the skyline. He can see at least two others that are taller. One has a stylized S on the side, and the other is even taller, with the top few floors still a skeleton of rebar and steel supports.

 

“What’s that really tall one? Looks like it’s not done yet.”

 

“Oh, um. . . Yeah. ‘Freedom’ Tower,” she says with a tinge of something that might be sadness in her voice.

 

“What?” he says, confused. Why would a building make her sad?

 

“Never mind. I’ll tell you about it later, ok?”

 

“Ok.”

 

-0-

 

They cross the Brooklyn Bridge, which is nearly the same as he remembers it. And hey—he even recognizes the Hotel Bossert in front of them. His heart starts thumping and his stomach twists into painful knots. Home. . .

 

But once across the bridge, they turn left instead of right, onto an unfamiliar road, an ugly gray elevated highway with a divider down the middle, that takes him away from Home. Nothing in front of him looks familiar. He can’t help but twist to look back over his shoulder in the cramped seat, hoping for a glimpse of something he recognizes, but it is all just anonymous stone and glass buildings. Maybe that one used to be a bakery? But now it has a bright colorful sign sticking out of the top that advertises LIVE NUDE GIRLS. _Really_?

 

A few miles on, Hill pulls the car over to the curb in front of a neat brick building several stories high, with a cheerful red awning over the front door. It doesn’t look new, and it clearly is no mansion, but it is definitely nicer than any apartment building he has ever lived in.

 

“We’re here,” Hill says briskly, stepping out of the car before he can even get his door open. He scrambles to retrieve his bag before she can grab it and follows her up to the front door, which she opens by punching in a code. She leads the way at a fast clip down the hall and up three sets of stairs. He has to take the steps two at a time to keep up with her.

 

On the third floor, Hill abruptly stops halfway down a brightly lit hallway, pulls out the keys and opens the door to unit 314. She goes in, but he grinds to a halt in the doorway, mouth open. Even completely empty, the apartment is _gorgeous_. Hardwood floors. Large windows with a view of the tree-lined street below. Freshly painted white walls. Through a doorway he spots a kitchen that would have made his mother drool.

 

“Wow. . .” he breathes. He can never afford a place like this, not in a million years. What is he going to do? The thought of having to tell Agent Hill that he can’t stay there makes his stomach hurt.

 

Hill takes several steps into the living room, heels clicking on the hardwoods. She has pulled something small and rectangular from her pocket and is tapping at it furiously. Then suddenly she spins around and fixes him with an intimidating glare. Steve feels his spine straighten automatically. His heels click together and his shoulders pull back.

 

He hears Hill snort derisively. “At ease, soldier,” she snaps. Steve doesn’t have to think about that either: Feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back.

 

Now Hill is rolling her eyes, so he has messed up again. Has the meaning of ‘at ease’ changed in the past seventy years?

 

“I didn’t mean that. Just. . .relax. I’m not here to give you orders; I’m just passing along what director Fury told me to tell you.”

 

“Oh. Um. . .” Suddenly Steve doesn't know what to do with his hands. At his sides was obviously wrong, and clasped behind his back is apparently wrong too. He is keenly aware of how _big_ his body is, taking up too much space, intrusive. Things hadn’t been easier, exactly, when he was smaller, but in some ways. . .

 

Becoming aware of the look of growing exasperation on her face, he settles for shoving his hands awkwardly in his pockets.

 

Her expression doesn’t soften. If anything, she looks even more annoyed with him. Her mouth twists and she lets out a harsh, impatient breath through her nose. “All right, whatever. Director Fury wants me to get you up to speed on life in the twenty-first century, whatever that means, and I guess we need to start today because you can’t exactly stay in a completely empty apartment.” Her voice rises in volume and now echoes off the blank walls while she gestures around the room. The small rectangular device is still in her hand. It almost looks like a mirror, but Steve can see that the front of it is lit up. Is it some sort of flashlight? Why would she need a flashlight when the lights are on? 

 

“So, leave your bag here and go back to the car, I guess. Lesson one is how to shop for furniture and shit like that,” Hill continues in a hard voice. Steve is finding it hard to concentrate because he is distracted by the strange device. There are words across the front of it now, words that he is sure weren’t there before.

 

The words say _Deal with it_.

 


	2. Unit 1: Shopping for Furniture and Shit like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets his first introduction to price inflation in the twenty-first century. There are some perks, however. For example, irons in this century have a plug so they can heat up on their own!

**Unit one: Shopping for Furniture and Shit like that**

 

**Learning Targets** : Student will:

—Cross the street against traffic

—Keep moving when entering automatic doorways

—Independently navigate a large department store

—Select appropriate household goods without panicking over prices

—Keep his goddamn mouth shut and not argue with the instructor

—Not attract attention by acting like a huge freak

 

* * *

 

Hill drives way too fast and makes liberal use of her horn, but at least now she is driving in the right direction, south toward central Brooklyn, winding down narrow streets, veering into oncoming traffic to avoid stopped cars and pedestrians. Steve is too busy clinging to the armrests to spend much time enjoying the view.

 

Finally she swerves over into a right turn lane and slows down enough that he figures out where they are. The buildings all look different, fancier, cleaner, but if they turn left at this intersection, they will only be two blocks from his old neighborhood. Maybe he can ask her to take a detour?

 

He takes a surreptitious glance at her out of the corner of his eye, trying to figure out if it’s ok to ask, and sees that she is glaring furiously out of the windshield at a truck backing out in front of them like it has just stolen her boyfriend. Suddenly she lays on the horn hard, making him jump and hit his head on the roof of the car. He thinks she might apologize, but she continues to ignore him completely. She pushes a button on the door that makes the window roll down by itself, sticks her head out and yells, “Get outta the fuckin’ way, you moron!”

 

So that’s a no, then.

 

The truck stops halfway out in the street, so Hill jerks the wheel to the left and swerves around it, then whips back in front to make the right turn, while Steve hangs on for dear life. Halfway down the block, she cuts off another car and swoops into the last parking space along the street. Almost immediately she shuts off the ignition and leaps out of the car, but it takes him a little longer because he has to unfold his legs and pry himself out of the seat. By the time he is out of the car, she is already standing on the other side of the road with her arms folded and her face set in an annoyed expression. Or maybe that’s how she always looks. He can't be sure, because she has looked that way from the moment he met her.

 

He takes a step out into the street to follow her, and then jumps back at the sound of a horn, just in time to avoid being run over by a yellow cab. More cars follow, an unbroken stream, trapping him on the wrong side of the road. No one stops, even when he takes a tentative step out into the roadway, and he has to step back again so his foot doesn’t get run over.

 

While he waits for the traffic, he glances up at the sign above the door that she is standing in front of, and freezes. Raymour and Flanigan? Oh!

 

_He is walking down this same street for the umpteenth time with his ma, his small hand in her bigger one. Like always she stops in front of Raymour and Flanigan and stares longingly in the window at The Chair (MY Chair, she called it, although she would never own it). Navy blue with small white diamonds almost like polka dots, plush armrests, curved wooden legs. . ._

 

_On the first of every month, she stuffs a crisp $10 bill in a milk jar behind the stove for the Chair fund. By the end of every month, most of that money has been pulled out again for doctor’s bills and asthma meds and also laundry soap and needle and thread to repair his clothes (“I gotta fight back, Ma!” “Stevie, I wish you understood there are other ways to make a point.”). And then she gets sick and dies, and he ends up using what’s left of the money to help pay for her funeral._  

 

“Hey, Rogers!” Hill’s voice is suddenly very close to his ear, and he jerks back in surprise to find that she has come back across the street to him. “There you are,” she says with a smirk. “Come on, let’s go.”

 

Somehow, with her next to him, they easily make it across the street, stepping around cars and behind cars and between cars that never even seem to notice them. As soon as they get to the curb, he walks a little faster, determined to finally be able to open a door for her, but there is no handle on the outside, so how is he supposed to. . .

 

Suddenly the door opens by itself and he stops in his tracks, gaping at it. How did it do that? Is there someone inside opening it? Some kind of pulley? Maybe a rope—?

 

Hill brushes past him, grabbing him by the arm and towing him inside just before the doors close again. “The door’s automatic. Gotta keep moving,” she says tightly.

 

He lets her pull him while he turns back to gawk at the doors. No one is touching them, there is no pulley, but suddenly they swish open again to admit someone else, a mother and small boy, who don’t even seemed to notice that the doors open by themselves.

 

The pair walks past into the store, and Steve turns his head to follow them, but then he is distracted by the view in front of them. Raymour and Flanigan’s has at least doubled in size since the last time he was here, and every inch is filled with gleaming, sparkly merchandise. Rows and rows of tables and chairs as far as the eye can see. Shelves lining the walls floor to ceiling, stacked with dishes, towels, and linens. There is an entire section that seems to contain only picture frames, each one fancier than the last.

 

Hill still has him by the arm and she’s towing him toward the tables and chairs now. “You’re gonna need something to eat on. Choose one,” she orders flatly.

 

“Choose a table and chair?” he asks, eyes wide.

 

“Chairs. As in more than one. Yes. Go,” she confirms impatiently.

 

So many tables and chairs, all much nicer than anything he has ever eaten from. He wanders down the aisle, gaping at them all, before finally stopping in front of one that is absolutely perfect. Simple varnished cherry wood, almost a square but with rounded corners. Slight decorative edge without being frilly. Comes with two sturdy chairs, in case he ever has company (seems unlikely, but who knows?).

 

A tag hangs from the edge of the table. He picks it up and flips it over, and almost faints at the price. “Holy sh—Uh, wow, that’s—this table is six hundred dollars!”

 

Hill, who has wandered away with her arms folded and a long-suffering expression on her face, just shrugs and says, “That’s not bad. The chairs are only like a hundred each.”

 

He drops the tag like it’s hot and hurries to catch up with her. “Six hundred dollars isn’t bad?!”

 

“Seems like a reasonable price to me.”

 

“I can’t—“ he starts, and then lowers his voice and starts again. “I can’t afford that. I can’t afford any of this stuff. Let’s go somewhere else.”

 

Her mouth tightens, so he has annoyed her again even though he has no idea how. She rubs the bridge of her nose. “Captain Rogers, you’ve got seventy years of back pay plus interest. You can afford whatever you want.”

 

“Really??”

 

“Yes, really. I thought Fury debriefed you, but apparently he didn’t tell you that either.”

 

He blinks. “Where is the money?”

 

“It’s in an account for you. I’ll show you later. I promise you, you have enough. Go nuts.”

 

“Oh. In that case, I want that table.” He surprises himself with the certainty in his voice. 

 

“Great,” she says without a hint of enthusiasm. She hold up her hand, and suddenly a saleslady, wearing an understated pantsuit, blond hair pulled back into an elaborate bun, appears at his elbow.

 

“Welcome to Raymour and Flanigan,” she says in a voice that purrs like a cat. “How can I help you?”

 

Steve turns around to greet her, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but Hill cuts him off. “He’ll take this table and chairs, and we need a bunch of other shit too,” she says brusquely. “So can you get some other salespeople over here?”

 

Steve opens his mouth to apologize, but the lady takes it in stride. “Certainly, ma’am.” And then one of those little black rectangle things appears in her hand (what are they? Everyone seems to be carrying them. Maybe a mirror?). She holds it up to her mouth (so maybe a radio?), says a few quiet words, and almost instantly they are surrounded by people who are dressed much better than he is, all apparently eager to be of service.

 

Hill leads the way, pointing out things “they” want to purchase while the salespeople hurry after her tapping away on their little rectangle things, and sometimes pointing them at tags until they make a soft beeping sound. Steve quickly finds himself at the rear of the group, watching anxiously. Is it possible that he really has enough money for all of this? He doesn’t think Hill would lie to him, but obviously there are lots of things they haven’t told him yet. Maybe Fury hasn’t told her the whole truth either?

 

They move out of the “tables and chairs” section into the kitchen section of the store. Rows and rows of dishes line the walls and fill every section of shelves, such an overwhelming array of choices that he can’t even see straight. He has never even been in a store like this, and now he is expected to suddenly know what he wants to purchase?

 

“Steve!” Hill calls to him over the salespeople’s heads. “What kind of dishes do you want?”

 

“Oh, um. . . I guess something. . . plain?”

 

“Not red, white, and blue?”

 

He thinks maybe she’s teasing him with that one, so he shakes his head. “Just white.”

 

She snorts. “Ok. These ones.” She points at a set of dishes, plain white with a row of beading around the edge. He remembers with a pang that Bucky’s mom had a set of dishes exactly like those that she kept in a cupboard, for “someday”. He thinks now that maybe that “someday” never came. Where did those dishes end up? In a box somewhere, or did Bucky’s sisters provide her children or grandchildren to pass them down to?

 

When he starts paying attention again, he realizes that Hill has told them to box up eight place-settings for him. “No no no!” he protests. “I don’t need that many!”

 

“How many then?” Hill snaps.

 

“Just one or two.”

 

She gives him an irritated look, then says to the saleslady, “Four settings. And a couple of serving bowls, salt and pepper shakers, butter dish, and a gravy boat.”

 

“No gravy boat. Why would I need a gravy boat?”

 

“To serve with the meat and potatoes, big guy,” Hill says drily. “All right, moving on to silverware.”

 

She heads that direction, with the salespeople diligently following her like ducklings, but Steve is suddenly distracted by the next section over, which holds row after row of gleaming pots and pans, the kind of pans his mother always drooled over in Marshall Field. She always walked away backward with an expression of such longing on her face that he promised himself that once he finally got a paycheck, he would buy her a set of pans like that. But of course that day never came. He got a job at the store on the corner right after high school, but she was gone before he got his first paycheck.

 

“Which ones do you want?” comes Hill’s voice from next to him. He didn’t even know she saw him wander off. He knows exactly which ones he wants: stainless steel, shiny, chef’s quality, but a quick peek at the price tag and his stomach gives a lurch. Better go for something cheaper.

 

He tears his eyes away from the beautiful pans and scans down the row. “Those ones, I guess,” he says, pointing at the lower quality ones at the end. Still scary expensive, but maybe he can afford them and still buy food to cook in them.

 

Hill’s lips twist and she gives him a sideways glance. “Ok,” she says finally. He isn’t sure what the problem is, but he moves on. Behind him, he can see Hill conferring with the saleslady, so he takes the chance to give her a hard time for once.

 

“Let’s keep moving,” he calls back to her, heading out of the kitchen section into the bathroom area.

 

“Whatever, dude,” she says with an impish grin, but a second later she’s back in front of him, pulling blue towels off the shelf and stacking them onto the arms of one of the salesmen.

 

“That’s too many.”

 

“Ok.” She stops, but as soon as he moves past her, he can see out of the corner of his eye that she has loaded the poor guy down with at least twice as many as he had previously. He’s about to protest but decides it’s not worth the effort, especially because he has noticed a whole shelf of irons and ironing boards on the next aisle. The irons all have cords, so they don’t need to be heated up in the fire like his mother’s. He lifts one and finds it surprisingly lightweight. There is an opening in the top to add water, and when he turns it over, he discovers that the bottom is shiny with small holes for steam to come out.

 

“You want that?” Hill asks in an incredulous voice. Her lips twist up in a little smirk. Is she making fun of him?

 

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

 

“I’m just surprised you—well, never mind. He’ll take one of these, I guess,” she says to the saleslady, who points her little rectangle at one of the boxes until it beeps. He’s not sure what that means but he thinks maybe he just bought it, and he didn’t even look at the price tag. Still, it has to be cheaper than six hundred dollars, doesn’t it?

 

Hill is already moving on to the next aisle, but he doesn’t bother to follow her too closely. It’s easier to let her make most of the decisions anyway, so he wanders away, back toward the furniture department, where rows of sofas and chairs are spread out in an apparently haphazard arrangement with narrow, winding aisles between them. He passes a godawful gold and purple sofa, skirts an end-table made from shiny chrome, and then he sees it: The Chair. 

 

His mother’s chair. 

 

Well, almost. The shape is right, the tiny diamonds like polka dots are right, but it’s dark red instead of navy blue.

 

He approaches it and carefully sits down. The seat gives just the right amount under him. The armrests are exactly the right height. Too bad it’s the wrong color. His eyes slide closed. He could probably sleep in this chair. In fact, he suddenly realizes he’s tired enough that he may fall asleep if he sits too long. 

 

A shadow falls across his face, and he opens his eyes to find Hill standing over him with her arms folded, eyebrows raised. “You like that chair?”

 

“Um. . . yeah. But—“

 

“But what? Do you want it or not?”

 

“Well, I was thinking of blue, but I don’t see one.”

 

Hill snaps her fingers, startling him, but she is gesturing to one of the salespeople, a Japanese man who reminds him of Jim Morita. “Do you have this chair in blue?”

 

The salesman taps on the rectangle thing in his hand. “Yes, we have one in the back,” he says in unaccented English.

 

“Great, he’ll take it. Put it on the card with the rest.” She turns away from the man, obviously dismissing him. “C’mon, time to go.”

 

Oh, already? Steve wants to talk to the salesman more, find out his name and where he came from. He wonders if Jim lived long enough to see his people casually accepted in American society. But Agent Hill has already started walking toward the exit, so he struggles his way out of the chair to follow. 

 

“How are we going to get all this stuff back to my apartment?”

 

“They’re going to deliver everything tonight. They’ll set it all up for you.”.

 

“I can assemble everything. I don't need them to set it up for me.”

 

She laughs. “Ok, fine, whatever, big guy.”

 

He frowns. He doesn’t see anything funny about being able to assemble his own furniture. So he gets in front of her and says, “Why’s that funny?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Why did you laugh at me?”

 

“Oh good grief.” She shakes her head, lips pursed. Finally she flings up her hands and says, “All right, I’m sorry. Of course you can assemble everything if you want to. What do I care? It’s your shit.”

 

Is she annoyed with him again? If so, why? And why does he care so much about whether what is essentially some random woman doesn't like him? He’s being ridiculous, and he knows it, but at this moment, this woman is almost the only person who even knows who he is. He’s drowning, and she is his only lifeline. A very tense, angry lifeline, but at least she’s something to hold on to.

 

He hurries ahead of her, takes advantage of a break in traffic to cross the street on his own this time, and manages to get to the car quickly enough to open the door for her. He’s pretty proud of himself, but she just grunts at him and doesn't even make eye contact as she slides into the seat. 

 

“What time is it?” she asks abruptly as he squeezes into his own seat, then doesn’t give him time to try to figure out an answer. “I’m starved. Let’s get some lunch.”

 

“Um, ok.”

 

“What are you in the mood for?”

 

“Ma’am? I’m not sure what you mean.”

 

“What do you want to eat?” she rephrases impatiently. “There’s teriyaki, or Indian, or Thai. . . Mexican. . .”

 

Steve frowns. He has never had any of those foods before and has no idea what they might taste like. What happened to hamburgers and french fries?

 

“Well?” she demands, thumbs tapping on the steering wheel.

 

“I—I’ve never had any of those,” he admits, and she lets out a breath of a laugh.

 

“All right, then I guess you’re getting Pad Thai because that’s what I want. You allergic to peanuts?”

 

“No, ma’am.” At least, he’s not _anymore_.

 

* * *

 

Pad Thai smells unfamiliar, exotic, but delicious enough that his mouth starts to water while he sits with the bag perched on his knees in the passenger seat. Whatever it is, it couldn’t be any stranger than some of the things they were forced to eat in the army.

 

When they get back to his new building, he jumps out and opens the door for her, but she doesn’t get out, just reaches out and plucks the bag from his hand.

 

“Your code for the front door is 0704,” she says while untying the bag and extracting one of the containers. She sets it down on the passenger seat and holds out the bag along with the key to his apartment. “Here you go. Apartment number 314, remember?”

 

His stomach gives a lurch. She’s going to leave him here alone? “You aren’t coming in?” He awkwardly tucks the bag under his arm and takes the key. It is warm from her pocket.

 

“No, I’ve got to go.”

 

“Oh. Ok.” He chews his lip while looking back and forth between the building and the key in his hand. He still has his other hand on the open car door. “0704?”

 

“0704. Fury wanted it to be easy for you to remember.”

 

“Ok.” He can feel the knot tightening in his stomach. She’s really going to drive away and leave him here alone.

 

“Ok. I’ll be back tomorrow morning at 7. Make sure you double check it’s really the delivery guys before you buzz them in. Oh, and here’s some money for dinner. There’s a store on the corner. Do you think you can get yourself there and back?” She shoves a bill into his hand and he just blinks at it.

 

“Ok,” he repeats stupidly. “I mean, yes ma’am.”

 

“Rogers? You can let go of the door now.”

 

He looks down at his hand where the knuckles have gone white. “Yes, ma’am,” he says automatically. He forces the fingers to unclench and pushes the door shut. “See you tomorrow.”

 

He shoves the key and money into his pocket and turns toward the building. 0704, he repeats to himself. Why would that number be easy for him to remember? 0704. Don’t forget that number or you’ll be locked out forever. 0704.

 

When he gets to the front door, he turns to find her still parked by the curb, eyebrows raised expectantly, which only increases his anxiety. His hand is slick with sweat, so he wipes it on his pant leg before trying the code. Miraculously, the door buzzes and when he pulls on it, it opens easily. He turns with a surprised grin toward the street, but Agent Hill is already pulling away. She didn’t even wave goodbye. 

 

* * *

 

June 27, 2012

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Progress report, day 1

 

What the hell, Fury?! You didn’t tell me the apartment was completely empty and you hadn’t told S. ANYTHING! The guy seems scared out of his mind. He needs his momma and I’m not exactly the warm fuzzy type. What am I, teaching kindergarten here? I’m telling you again to send Coulson or somebody else, because I’d probably have him blubbering in the corner by the end of the day tomorrow. Hell, he looked like he was about to burst into tears when I left him there today.

 

I’m not going back there in the morning. Send someone else.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: Progress report, day 1

 

Saw the expense reports for S. new furniture and supplies. Looks like you’re handling this just fine. Report to his apartment tomorrow at 0700 to continue the debriefing.

 

F.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 1

 

Fuck you. You’re a piece of shit, you know that, right?

 

M.

 

\---

 

**This message has not been sent. Are you sure you want to delete it?**

 

**Yes**     No

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 1

 

Noted.

 

M.

 

 


	3. Unit 1: Independent Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve assembles every thing and ventures out on his own. It doesn't go well.

 

Student will:

—Maintain appropriate security by checking ID before opening the door

—Assemble everything himself, I guess. Don’t ask me why.

—Get himself down to the corner store and back without getting killed (please don't get killed crossing the street. Please. Fury would never forgive the instructor)

 

* * *

 

 

When he gets back to the empty apartment, he stands inside the door for a long moment, with the bag clutched in both hands, and just tries to breathe. Suddenly he’s eighteen again, stepping into his apartment in Brooklyn after his mom’s funeral. The loneliness is oppressive, overwhelming, crippling. He had finally found a place where he belonged, he had friends and a purpose, and in a split second, it had all been taken away again, leaving him alone and drifting as if on the debris from a shipwreck.

 

A loud grumble from his stomach interrupts his thoughts. Even though his mind and emotions feel numb, paralyzed even, his body still needs food, and since there is a bag of it in his hand, he might as well eat it. 

 

So he does, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor by the window. The food tastes strange, and so spicy it makes his tongue and lips burn, but he’s not exactly in a position to be picky. When he’s done, he moves on autopilot to rinse the plastic fork and container and lay them out on the counter to dry. He has no towel, so he wipes his hands on his pants, then glances around the kitchen. Most of it is familiar: stove, oven, refrigerator, sink. He knows what all of those are. On the counter there is a small metal and plastic box, about two feet square, with a handle on the side. Maybe it’s a breadbox? He pulls on the handle and the door opens with a “chunk” sound, but there is nothing inside. 

 

With a shrug, he carefully closes the door again, goes to the living room window and stares out at the busy street. Everyone is in such a hurry—scurrying around with their heads down, driving too fast, honking at anyone who gets in their way. Everyone has someplace to be, preferably _right now_ , and he has nothing, and no where, and _no one_ , and it’s suddenly all so overwhelming that he has to lie down on that beautiful, empty hardwood floor. He lies down on his back and stares up at the coved ceiling and thinks _what the hell?_

 

And within about five seconds, he’s asleep right there on the floor, and he doesn’t wake up until the air raid siren goes off. _There are bombs dropping all around him, and the ceiling is about to cave in; he can hear his men yelling for him—_

 

He wakes with a start to find that, no, his apartment isn’t under attack, there are no bombs, and the sound his brain interpreted as an air raid siren is in fact some sort of buzzer coming from the area of the front door. The voice calling his name is coming through a speaker next to the door.

 

“Mr. Rogers? Delivery for you!” a man’s voice calls. “Can you buzz us in?”

 

No, actually, he can’t, because he has no idea how the buzzer works, so he sprints down the three flights of stairs and opens the front door before he remembers that Agent Hill had told him to ask for proof of ID. Luckily for him, it’s actually the delivery team from Raymour and Flanigans, just like it says on their hats.

 

There are six of them, and they quickly and efficiently start bringing in load after load of furniture wrapped in clear plastic, and boxes and boxes of what has to be much more than he ordered, although he can’t be sure because he did walk away for a while, so Agent Hill may have thrown in a few more things when he wasn’t looking. He tries to help them at first, but they just take things out of his hands and say words like “liability” and “insurance” that he doesn’t quite understand, so after the second time he just stands with his hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets and tries to stay out of their way.

 

Finally, when there is a mountain of stuff piled in the living room, and another mountain in the bedroom, and boxes are piled all over the kitchen and bathroom so that he can’t even get to the toilet, the guy who appears to be in charge holds out some kind of device toward him, like one of those small rectangles only bigger, and it’s got a shiny front with writing on it. He blinks at it because he’s still in a daze. Does it have glass on the front with paper underneath it? How is it lit up like that?

 

“Sign here,” the man says, pushing the rectangle thing into his hand. Steve takes it, slowly, and just stares at it bewildered. “Right there on the tablet,” the man says again, pointing to a line near the bottom. He’s supposed to sign there? How?

 

“Um. . . got a pen?”

 

“No, just sign with your finger,” the man clarifies, although that doesn’t help Steve at all. Still blinking in bewilderment, Steve turns the device over in his hand. The back is just blank metal. The man sighs, takes the device, and turns it the right direction. “Put your finger right there,” he says slowly and clearly, pointing to the line. Steve does so, even though he feels stupid doing it. “Good, now sign your name.”

 

Steve moves his finger, then stops when he sees that it is making a line on the device. Somehow he’s writing, with his finger, on something that feels like a mirror, but why is he surprised? These people have doors that open themselves, and magic radios that will tell you if they have a blue one in the back. Why wouldn’t they have the ability to make a line on a piece of glass with a finger?

 

“Go ahead,” the man urges, so Steve keeps writing, and although what comes out looks almost nothing like his signature, the man is apparently satisfied, because he says “Have a nice day” and they all troop out, leaving Steve alone with an overwhelming mountain of boxes.

 

So he gets to work, ripping off plastic and cardboard, and trying to follow the directions that are printed in little pictographs, and failing and trying again until he has the table, and chairs, and bed put together, and most of the towels unboxed and in the cupboard (there are eight of them, even though he told he her didn't need that many, and a pile of washcloths and hand towels too, all matching in a blue and white stripe that he finds he likes an unreasonable amount). There’s even something he thinks is a TV, but he doesn’t know how to work it. He can’t even find the on switch. Another box holds more strange-looking equipment encased in white squeaky foam stuff. He has no idea what it might be. He takes out the pieces and lays them out on the floor. There are several wires and cables, and little boxes with buttons on them, and something that is maybe the world’s fanciest toaster and he has no idea about any of it, so he just dumps it all into a box, shoves it under the coffee table, and keeps going.

 

The next box holds the pots and pans, but they aren't the ones he asked for. They are the beautiful shiny stainless steel pans he didn't want to admit he was longing for. He thinks at first that the shop must have made a mistake and he'll have to send them all back, but then he remembers Hill talking to the saleslady after he walked away. She wouldn't have told them the wrong ones, would she? No, of course not. It must have been a mistake, but he decides to keep them anyway. They are too beautiful and perfect to give up, even though he knows he'll feel guilty every time he looks at them.

 

Stacking the pans by the sink to wash later, he keeps opening boxes until he finally finds the one that holds the chair, his mom’s chair, but when he gets it unwrapped he discovers it isn’t blue, it’s red like the one in the store. He sits back on his heels and stares at it. Suddenly he can feel tears pricking at the back of his eyes, and he tells himself he’s being ridiculous. He has an apartment full of stuff that’s much nicer than he ever would have thought he could own, so what right has he to cry over the color of a chair? _The universe doesn’t owe you anything, Stevie_ , he can hear his mother’s voice say, _So be grateful for whatever you got_.

 

So he makes himself turn his back on the chair and surveys the apartment, which now looks like a bomb has gone off, but he hasn’t the energy to clean it up because he suddenly realizes he’s hungry again and there’s no food of any kind in the apartment. Oh, Agent Hill gave him money! He has a twenty dollar bill in his pocket, and she said there was a store on the corner where he could get something to eat. A walk might be the thing to clear his head.

 

It’s evening now, but the flow of fast-walking, impatient people filling the sidewalks has not diminished. He keeps his hands in his pockets and his elbows tucked in to try to be smaller, not take up so much space. People still bump into him, but no one apologizes. In fact, they don’t seem to notice him at all. While he walks he keeps his head down and watches people out of the corner of his eye. A lot of the men and even some of the women are wearing dungarees, some with holes in them. Maybe there’s a factory around here where they all work? But other than the dungarees, they aren’t dressed like laborers. Several have. . . interesting hair colors, and he has to remind himself not to stare.

 

Along the way he sees a little coffee shop, with a chalkboard sign in front of the door that says Blue Bottle Coffee and advertises “Latte” (which he remembers is a fancy Italian coffee drink) for $3.75. Really? What’s it made of, melted gold? If coffee costs that much, will the $20 in his pocket be enough for dinner?

 

When he gets to the corner, he discovers that the store is on the other side of the street, which means he will have to cross against moving traffic without any help. He grew up in this city, used to cross the street all the time without any trouble, but things were different back then, the cars moved slower and there weren’t nearly as many of them. This century is like a foreign country, and he can’t even cross the street. He survived over sixty-five years encased in ice, and now he’s going to die trying to cross the goddamn street. His heart starts beating faster and his mouth goes dry. His stomach is trying to crawl up through his throat. Maybe he’s having an asthma attack? This is how they always started, but he hasn’t had one since the serum.

 

He looks to the left, then the right, then back to the left again. Car. . . car. . . car. . .break! GO!

 

As he takes a step out into the street, he hears a woman’s voice shout, “Hey, Dumbass!”

 

He jumps back onto the curb just as a bicycle speeds by, close enough for the handlebar to clip his elbow. The woman riding it turns her head toward him, mouth curled into a snarl. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!” she yells.

 

Now everyone is looking at him, but their faces aren’t friendly. He can feel their disapproving stares surrounding him, pressing in on him. He stumbles back a step, turns and flees back toward the relative safety of his apartment.

 


	4. Unit 2: Finances and not dropping dead when you find out you're suddenly a millionaire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finds out how much back pay he's got coming to him. That many zeros are not good for his heart.

Unit 2: Finances and not dropping dead when you find out you’re suddenly a millionaire.

Learning targets: Student will:

—Learn to read a bank statement

—Not ask so many stupid questions

—Like not even one stupid question, so help me God

—Understand a debit card

—Seriously, it's just like writing a check

—Learn to write a goddamn check

—Independent practice required on use of a debit card (I’m telling you the truth—it’s just like writing a check)

—Use the damn card. It’s not as hard as it looks

 

* * *

 

 

(June 28, 2012, 0700 hrs)

 

_Machine gun fire. Browning M1917 full auto, he would know that ratatatatat anywhere. Plane going down and then the clackety-clackety of a train and Bucky is falling. He reaches out to catch him, but his hand is stuck in something. Can’t reach him, can’t—_

 

He wakes with a start to find that he is tangled in a blanket on a hard floor, lying next to a bed. He can see underneath the bedframe to where sunlight is slanting in the window. It’s all unfamiliar and he is covered with sweat and his heart is pounding and his head feels fuzzy. Where the hell is he?

 

Suddenly the Browning starts up again—Ratatatat!—and he ducks automatically, with his heart in his throat before he realizes it is just someone knocking at the front door.

 

“Rogers!” a woman’s voice calls. “Rogers! You in there?” Oh, he’s in New York and it’s 2012 (!) and he’s on the floor because the bed was too soft and Agent Hill is here to torture him some more. He untangles himself from the blanket, stumbles to the front door and yanks it open without thinking, just to get her to stop knocking.

 

As soon as it’s open, she pushes her way past him with an annoyed glance. “God, put a shirt on, won’t you?” She is wearing a backpack and carrying several plastic sacks, which she lugs through the living room to the kitchen. He follows her, trying to take some of the bags, but she pulls them out of his reach with a frown. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”

 

Oh. He glances around at the mess of cardboard and plastic packaging strewn around the room on the way to the bathroom. “Sorry, I didn’t get around to cleaning up yet.” He grabs the shirt off the hanger and pulls it over his head. When his head emerges from the neckhole, he discovers that Hill is leaning against the doorway of the bathroom with her arms folded.

 

“You slept on the floor,” she says accusingly.

 

“Um. . . yeah, sort of,” he mumbles.

 

“We bought you a bed and you slept on the floor. I even picked out _sheets_ for you. I never pick out sheets for _anyone_.”

 

He can feel his ears turning red. “Sorry. The bed was. . . too soft.”

 

Her lips quirk. She’s scrutinizing him in a way that is frankly unnerving and he doesn’t know how to react. Her presence in the doorway effectively traps him in the bathroom and he’s at a loss for how to get her to move. To make matters worse, his stomach suddenly starts rumbling, reminding him that he never ate any dinner last night.

 

“Did you go to the store last night?” she asks sharply. So much for any hope she might not notice the racket his stomach is putting up.

 

“I, uh, I decided not to.” He stutters. He can’t explain to her why he didn’t go into the store, not when she is glaring at him with such an obvious look of disapproval. Why does it matter so much that she approve of him? He looks longingly past her shoulder at all of the empty space in the hallway. If she would just move a little to her left, he could escape the bathroom. Or maybe not—he tends to underestimate his own size even still.

 

Finally she makes a kind of a hrumphing sound, pushes herself off the doorframe, and strides back down the hall. He follows her like a lost puppy to the kitchen, where she starts banging around, opening cupboards and pulling out pans. The nice ones, not the cheaper ones he had decided to settle for. He thinks she is responsible for that, but there's no way he's going to ask her. There are also far too many place settings of dishes and silverware in the cupboard, mixing bowls and metal pie pans and serving bowls that he didn’t ask for and doesn’t need, and a supersoft blanket in the bedroom that he thinks cost over $100. All of these things were purchased without his consent, probably with his money, and that fact makes his stomach twist in anxious knots. Growing up with barely enough money to make ends meet (and sometimes not even that), he is used to making do or going without. The idea that he could just throw down $100 on a _blanket_ is pretty far outside of his comfort zone. He wants to tell her to send it all back; he can make do with a scratchy army blanket on the floor and one set of cheap dishes. 

 

But he can’t do that. 

 

He’s used to standing up to bullies, but everything here is so strange that he feels like he’s drowning, and she’s the only one holding out any sort of lifeline. Plus it doesn’t hurt that she’s easy to look at. She doesn’t _look_ nearly as tough as she _sounds_. Maybe once he gets to know her, she will be turn out to be kind to him, especially if he tries very hard to make her happy. That could work, right? It worked with Peggy.

 

“Your chair is red,” Hill says suddenly, with her head in a cupboard. He gives a guilty start because her voice sounds just like his mother’s when he had disappointed her, come home again all covered in blood and bruises (“New trousers don’t grow on trees, Stevie!”).

 

“Oh, I—I think they sent the wrong one.”

 

She closes the cupboard she was digging in and opens another one. “Why don’t you call them and complain?”

 

His stomach gives a lurch at that idea. He has never been good at talking on the telephone. He always gets tongue-tied. “I—uh—no thanks.”

 

“Well, I’m not doing it for you. If you want the blue one, you’ll have to call them and tell them yourself.” 

 

“It’s fine, Ma’am,” he assures her hastily. “I don’t care what color it is.”

 

“Whatever; suit yourself.” She slams the cupboard shut and starts opening drawers. “Where the hell did you put that butter dish?”

 

He doesn’t remember any butter dish. He's never owned a butter dish in his life. “I didn’t ask for a butter dish,” he blurts out. “Why would I even need a butter dish?” He hasn’t had real butter in years, not since before his mom got sick. He can’t even remember what real butter tastes like.

 

“To put butter on!” she snaps back. “Fuck this.” She stops searching in the cupboards and stands with her back to him at the stove, her hands moving with brisk, angry motions. He folds his arms and frowns at her back. What has he done to offend her? He has no idea.

 

A minute later, she turns around with two plates in her hands, both filled with scrambled eggs, flecked with red (tomatoes, maybe?) and toast. One holds a much bigger serving than the other, and this one she holds out to him. He just gapes at it.

 

“Take it!” she orders him. “Fuck, I’m burning my hands here.”

 

“Oh!” He takes the plate from her hand, and she scoops up silverware and two glasses filled with milk and pushes past him to his new dining table. He follows her, blinking in surprise. “You fixed me breakfast?”

 

“Why wouldn’t I?” she says defensively. “I was hungry and I didn’t have time to eat before I left home. Although I guess I didn’t really need to hurry, seeing as you hadn’t even dragged your ass out of bed when I got here. Well, not that you were in the bed exactly.” She starts stuffing scrambled eggs in her mouth, so Steve also picks up his fork and takes a careful bite. He is surprised by how spicy they are—apparently what he thought was tomatoes are actually peppers. They’re hotter than he’s used to, but he’s hungry enough that he quickly gobbles down almost all of them. Then he realizes his mouth is burning, so he takes a gulp of milk to try to put out the fire. As he is working on the second piece of toast, he looks up to discover she is watching him with an amused half-grin.

 

“What?”

 

“You must have been hungry. I’ve never seen anyone make food disappear that fast. And I’ve seen Thor eat pop tarts.”

 

He swallows the last bite and wipes his mouth. “Who’s Thor?”

 

“Just a—um, I’m not sure how to describe Thor, but he’s a big eater.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Maybe you’ll meet him sometime. He’s kind of off-w—out of town at the moment.”

 

“Oh. Ok.”

 

“Good thing I brought you some groceries, since you didn’t go to the store. There’s enough for lunch and dinner too, but you’ll probably have to go get yourself something for breakfast.”

 

“Get myself something?”

 

“Yeah, at that mini-mart. Go tonight and get something for tomorrow.”

 

Steve swallows hard. He can’t tell her he can’t go to the mini-mart on his own. He looks up and discovers she’s watching him with a curious expression. “Ok,” he agrees quickly. “Yes, Ma’am, I’ll go.”

 

“Good.” She takes her last bite and pushes back her chair, so Steve quickly jumps up and takes both their plates to the kitchen to do the washing up. He runs the washwater, and is squirting in a bit of the dish soap that has magically appeared next to the sink, when he hears her footsteps behind him. The steps stop, but she doesn’t say anything for a while. He is pretty sure she disapproves of what he’s doing, although he has no idea why, so he keeps going until all the dishes are washed and rinsed and laid out next to the sink on one of his brand new kitchen towels.

 

“You have a dishwasher, you know,” Hill says finally, as he is carefully stacking the last pan on the towel. Her voice surprises him so much that he almost drops the pan, but recovers smoothly, he thinks.

 

“A what, Ma’am?”

 

“A dishwasher. Right there.” She steps up next to him and points under the counter at what looks like a refrigerator door, except the handle is at the top. He has no idea what it is. She pulls down on the handle to expose a rack inside that looks like it would hold dishes. Is he supposed to put them in there when he’s done with them? Then what are the cupboards for?

 

“Oh, well, I think they’re fine there,” he says vaguely, drying his hands on another one of the new towels. She shrugs.

 

“Whatever makes you happy, I guess. Let’s sit down and go over all this financial shit.”

 

Yeah, that. He’s dreading that, the kind of dread that sits like a lump of coal in his belly. He has never had a conversation about money that didn’t end with someone in tears, usually his mother, but sometimes him as well. He sits carefully, silently, while she opens the backpack and starts dumping piles of paper on the table.

 

“I printed everything out because I thought you’d probably want hard copies.” She straightens the stacks and sorts them into piles that mean nothing to him. He doesn’t know what ‘hard copies’ means, but the papers they look like they were made on a typewriter, not printed.

 

She rummages around in the backpack again and this time comes up with a small black box. She opens it and pulls out one of those little rectangular devices he’s seen everyone carrying around. “Oh, here, catch,” she says, tossing it to him without even looking. “I brought you a phone.” She drops the box onto the side table and goes back to her papers.

 

He catches the device and turns it over in his hand, frowning. Under the little window there is a stylized ’S’. “This is a telephone?”

 

“Yeah. Hit the button on the side to turn it on.”

 

He finds the button and presses it, and is surprised to see the little window on the front light up, just like the tablet. The screen says 

 

**7:42 a.m.**

**Tuesday, June 28, 2012**

 

He blinks at the words. 2012. Right. It’s 2012. He’s in the future and they have little telephones that they carry around in their pockets, and _what the hell?_

 

“Just swipe your thumb over the screen,” Hill says.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“Like this.” She takes the telephone from his hand and slides her thumb across the screen to the right. The date disappears and little numbers appear on the screen.

 

“Your code is 0704. Pretty easy to guess, so I recommend you change it later.” There’s that number again. Why 0704? Why would that be easy to remember and guess? She hands the telephone back to him and says “Go ahead and put the code in.”

 

“Ok.” He dutifully taps in the numbers, and the screen changes again. Now there are little pictures and words on the window, but he’s not sure what they mean.

 

“Good. I’ll show you everything later. Right now all you need to know is how to make a phone call. Just press the phone icon.”

 

“Telephone icon?”

 

“See, right there.” She taps a little picture of a telephone, and all the pictures disappear and are replaced with words—names and ten digit numbers. Two names, specifically: M. Hill and N. Fury.

 

“I only put two numbers in, mine and Fury’s. We can add more later, after you. . . well, meet more people, I guess.”

 

Steve blinks at the two names on the glass. Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Two weeks ago they were strangers; now they are the only two people he knows in the world. The realization brings a wave of loneliness that threatens to drown him. _Stop wallowing, Stevie_ , his mother’s voice reprimands him. _You’re alive, what more do you want?_

 

“Hey, you ok?” Hill’s voice sounds far away. 

 

With supreme effort, Steve drags himself back to the present—future—whatever. “Yes, Ma’am, I’m fine,” he says, although he really wants to go shut himself in the bedroom and hide.

 

“Ooookay. Sure you are. Anyway, I’ll show you the rest later. Just tap my name and it will call me.”

 

“Yeah, ok.”

 

“And you need to carry it with you at all times. If you need help, you can call me or Fury.”

 

“Oh. All right. Yes, Ma’am.” He puts the telephone in his pocket. He doesn’t mind carrying it with him, but he doubts he’ll call her for help. What would he say? ‘Come walk me across the street because I’m scared’? Hardly. He can take care of himself, always has.

 

“Let’s take a look at your bank statement,” Hill says. She pulls the top paper off one of the stacks and shoves it into his hands. He scans down the page. There are a lot of numbers on it, none of which make too much sense to him until he sees the words ‘Total Balance’ at the bottom, along with a dollar amount that frankly seems impossible. His heart starts pounding, because it is more money than he has ever seen in one place in his life.

 

“Hey, Rogers! Breathe,” Hill commands him. He sucks in a noisy breath and exhales just as noisily. “Slow down or you’ll hyperventilate.”

 

“I really have that much money?” he says weakly.

 

“Yeah, really. Well, once you pay for all the shit we bought yesterday it will go down a little, but that’s your back pay with interest.”

 

He slumps in his chair. “Wow,” he whispers. His head is spinning, but then he remembers the chalkboard sign in front of the coffee shop and it puts a new perspective on things. “Although, with the way prices have gone up, it might not last long. Do you know that coffee place down the block charges THREE FIFTY for a fancy Italian coffee? It’s insane.”

 

She snorts. “Yeah, well, life’s tough all over.” She rummages around in her backpack again and pulls out two shiny plastic cards, one red and one blue. “All right, here are your credit and debit cards.”

 

“What are those?”

 

She holds up the red card. “A debit card is like writing a check.”

 

“Oh. I’ve never written a check.”

 

“You haven’t?”

 

“No, Ma’am, I always just paid cash.”

 

“Well, do you understand how a check works, at least? Like, you write them a check, and they take the money out of your bank account?”

 

His lip twists at her condescending tone. “Yes, Ma’am, I’m familiar with the concept.”

 

“Good. It’s like that. I mean, you don’t have to write anything; you just swipe the debit card and they take the money directly out of your account.”

 

“I get it,” he assures her, although he has no idea what ‘swipe’ means, other than stealing, and he doesn’t think that’s right. He really hopes she’ll demonstrate at some point before he has to use it on his own.

 

“Now this is a credit card,” she says, holding out the blue card.”It’s like borrowing money, and they send you a bill to pay later, which you have to pay with a check or on-line.”

 

“On line?”

 

“Through their website.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Never mind. I guess you’ll be writing a check. I can get you some. And I guess I’ll be showing you how to write a check,” she says with a scowl. “This is turning into a remedial course.”

 

“I can figure it out.”

 

“Sure, whatever. This card has a low limit, only $1000 to start with, so don’t go too crazy.”

 

A thousand dollars doesn’t sound like a low limit to him. “Why would I want to borrow if I have enough money to buy whatever I want?” he asks doubtfully.

 

Hill huffs through her nose. “It’s to build up credit. You don’t have any credit history right now. Once you build up credit, you can buy something like a house or a car.”

 

His eyebrows go up. He had never in his life even thought about buying a house, but he probably has enough money now. “What about a motorcycle?” he asks eagerly.

 

“I guess so, if you wanted. But you don’t have a driver’s license yet, so you’ll have to wait a while on that one.”

 

He frowns. “Yes I do have a driver’s license.”

 

“It expired a long time ago, buddy. They’ll make you retake the test.”

 

“I know how to drive,” he protests.

 

Hill’s eyebrows have pulled down and her jaw clenches. “The rules might have changed a little,” she says tightly. He has annoyed her again, but again he doesn’t know what he did. In fact, she has seemed annoyed with him since the moment they met and he has no idea why. 

 

“Did I offend you somehow, ma’am?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You seem annoyed with me. I’m wondering what I did wrong.”

 

She lets out a noisy breath. “Well, if you must know, I didn’t ask for this assignment. Babysitting is a little below my paygrade.”

 

 _Ouch_.

 

He crosses his arms and pretends that didn’t hurt like a knife to the heart. “You don’t have to do this,” he lies, stony-faced. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

 

“No you won’t. You can’t even cross the goddamn street or use a debit card. But I know it’s not your fault. I’ll try not to take it out on you, but I gotta tell you I have no patience for stupid questions.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am, I figured that part out.”

 

“Ok, yeah, well. . . sorry for snapping at you.”

 

Ok, that’s better. Back to Operation Get Agent Hill to Like Me. “Apology accepted,” he says with the brightest smile he can muster, “so what are we going to do today?”

 

She stands up and starts stuffing paperwork into file folders. “ _We_ are not doing anything. _I_ am going back to SHIELD and doing my real job. _You_ can clean up this mess and then do whatever the hell you want. I’ll be back tomorrow morning at seven, and we’ll go figure out grocery shopping so I don’t have to keep bringing you food.”

 

Oh, she’s leaving already? His stomach clenches—the thought of an almost full day alone in his apartment is like a a physical weight on his chest, but he doesn’t want her to know that. She already thinks he’s a failure, a burden, someone she has to _babysit_. He carefully arranges his face into an expressionless mask so Hill won’t read his disappointment. Then he glances at her face to see if she has noticed his lapse in emotional control, but discovers he needn’t have worried because she’s putting things back in her backpack and not even looking at him.

 

The file folders end up in a neat stack on the corner of the table, then she zips her backpack shut and finally looks up at him. He wants to ask her not to leave, but the words stick in his throat. He must be doing a good job of hiding his emotions, because she holds out her hand and says, “Can I have my twenty bucks back, since you didn’t go to the store?”

 

“I thought you wanted me to go to the store today.”

 

“Yes, if you want something, you should just go.”

 

“Ma’am? How am I going to pay for the groceries if you take the money? Did you bring me some cash?”

 

“I just gave you a credit card and debit card. Use one of those.”

 

Steve’s stomach hurts. What will she say if he admits he doesn’t understand about the little plastic cards? “I don’t know how to use those yet.”

 

“Well then, I guess you have homework.”

 

* * *

 

June 28, 2012

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Progress report, day 2

 

He. does. not. know. how. to. write. a. goddamn. check. That is all.

 

M

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: Progress report, day 2

 

Ok, then. Have fun teaching him. Any tears today?

 

F.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 2

 

Not that I saw, but he knows I’m not happy about this. If he gives me those stupid sad eyes again I’m quitting.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: Progress report, day 2

 

Then you’re doing fine. Keep up the good work. Let me know when you think he’s ready to return to active duty.

 

F.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 2

 

That might be sometime in 2017 at this pace. He won’t even go to the fucking grocery store on his own. Not even a grocery store—it’s a mini-mart. He about had a panic attack when I asked him about it.

 

M.

 

P.S. Can you please tell him to keep his goddamn shirt on? Literally, I mean.

 


	5. Unit 2: independent practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little interstitial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very short, so I decided to give you a two-fer. Enjoy two chapters for the price of one!

Unit 2, Independent practice

After Agent Hill leaves, Steve wanders into the kitchen and checks the fridge to see what she brought. The eggs were good, but he’s starving again already. He forgets sometimes that his appetite went up exponentially after the serum, so he’s always surprised when he quickly gets so hungry he feels faint.

In the fridge he finds bread (pre-sliced!), thin cuts of meat and cheese and a bottle of milk, so he fixes himself a dry sandwich and washes it down with milk that is so thin it is almost translucent. The bread is bland and tasteless, but he eats it anyway, silently. He can hear the noise of traffic outside, but he feels so detached from it all. It’s another world out there, and he’s an alien in a foreign land.

After he finishes eating, he carefully washes the dishes and lays them out on a dishtowel to dry. Then to keep his mind off the boredom and loneliness, he keeps working, mindlessly picking up all the bits of cardboard and plastic packaging strewn around the floor, rearranging the furniture, putting away his meager personal items, washing out and hanging up his extra set of clothes, until the whole apartment is spotless. When he checks the clock, he realizes it’s only 11:15 and he still has practically a whole day to kill all by himself. He knows he should go to the store to practice using the debit card, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. He decides to put it off until later.

Maybe he can watch TV. He’s pretty sure that’s what that big thing is with the screen, but he doesn’t know how to use it. Looking around on the back, he discovers the plug and finds the outlet. When he plugs it in, it makes a little humming sound and a blue light comes on, so that’s reassuring. He checks all around on the front of the TV, but there is no on switch that he can find.

Finally, he gives up and pulls the pilfered notepad and pencil out of the drawer of the bedside table where he had put it that morning. He sits down in the wrong-colored chair, flips to a blank page and starts sketching from memory: first he tries to draw his old street, but it keeps coming out wrong and he can’t erase the pen. So finally he gives up and draws his new building with the tree-lined street in front filled with speeding cars and hurried people, then Nick Fury looking appropriately furious, Agent Hill with her arms folded, eyebrows pulled down and nostrils flared in irritation. He sketches the huge furniture store with himself tiny and lost in the corner, trying to climb up into his mother’s chair.

Finally he draws Peggy, then the Howling Commandos (he can’t quite bring himself to draw Bucky). He tries to make them look happy, but it’s not working. All of them have sad eyebrows and downturned mouths. Maybe he doesn’t want to think of them cheerfully moving on without him, coming home from the war and getting married, and starting families, content even though they think he’s dead (and then he realizes that it’s incredibly selfish of him not to want them to have lived good lives without him).

He wonders if Agent Hill could research what happened to all of his friends. Does he still want to know? How will he feel if he discovers that they all went on to live happy, successful lives? Will that make it better? Or worse?

Of course, that sets him off on another round of wallowing, even though he tells himself sternly to knock it off. He knows it’s pointless, but when he’s bored, his thoughts start going round and round like a dog chasing it’s tail. If he hadn’t let Dr. Erskine experiment on him, he would never have been in the war in the first place. But if he hadn’t been there, he couldn’t have saved Bucky. But it didn’t matter if he saved Bucky because he died anyway. And if he hadn’t been there, he couldn’t have defeated the Red Skull and diverted that plane. But who’s to say Red Skull would have even tried that if Steve hadn’t been there. But if. . .around and around and around. . . 

Several hours later, he is hungry again, but if he eats the rest of the meat and bread now, there will be nothing for breakfast. He needs to go to that little store on the corner and use the “debit card”, but now he’s not even sure which one it is, and there’s no way he’s calling Agent Hill to ask. He flips the notebook shut and arranges it carefully on the mantel. He tucks both cards and his telephone in his pocket and heads off down the sidewalk toward the store, bending his head and trying to make himself smaller to stay out of the way of the uncaring crowds.

Before he even gets to the corner, his exhaustion with the whole thing, and anxiety over using the debit card or getting lost or run over by a car, overwhelm his hunger, and he turns to trudge back toward his building. 0704, he rehearses in his head. 0704. Why does that number sound familiar?


	6. Unit 3: Grocery shopping (Don't panic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sad Steve is overwhelmed by all the choices at the grocery store. And he's not sure what "autistic" means, but he's pretty sure he doesn't like Hill calling him that.

Unit 3: Panic at the grocery store

Learning targets: Student will:

—Wear a shirt around the instructor at all times

—Not panic at the grocery store

—Avoid picking fights with little old ladies

—Can the puppy dog eyes

—Use the goddamn debit card

—Learn what “swipe” means, for crying out loud!

 

* * *

 

(June 29, 2012, 0700 hrs)

 

The next morning, a knock sounds at the door while he is ironing his t-shirt on his new ironing board, and it startles him so much he burns his finger. Setting the iron carefully on its end, he trots to the door with his burnt finger in his mouth. When he opens it, Agent Hill glares at him with her nostrils flared, just like in his sketch. It’s uncanny.

 

“You didn’t check if it was me before you answered,” she scolds, pushing past him into the apartment with her arms full, “and put your goddamned shirt on!”

 

“Oh, sorry.” he hurries to the bathroom to grab the shirt, but it is still too hot to put on and his finger is throbbing in time with his heartbeat _thud_ **ouch** _thud_ **ouch** _thud_ **ouch**. “I didn’t know what time you were coming.”

 

From the bathroom, he hears her drop the bags she is carrying on the table with a thump. “I told you yesterday.”

 

“Oh, sorry, Ma’am.” He pulls on the shirt, which is still warm but at least it won’t burn him anymore, and hurries back into the kitchen to see if he can help her with the bags, but she is already unpacking them onto the cluttered tabletop. “I don’t know what time it is now.”

 

“Look at your phone.”

 

“Huh?” He glances quizzically at the home telephone perched on the small table behind the sofa, but he can’t see any clock on it.

 

“No, your cell phone. I texted you earlier.”

 

“Oh, that one. Yeah. I don’t know where that is. Sorry, Ma’am.”

 

“Good grief.” She pulls her own telephone out of her pocket and taps the screen for a few seconds, and suddenly he hears music coming from the direction of the bedroom, where his blankets are still lying in a rumpled pile on the floor. Hill goes in there and comes out a second later with his telephone, which she tosses to him. The little screen now says 

 

**One missed call**

**M. Hill**

**7:06 am**

 

“You called me?”

 

She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, so that was the wrong thing to say. “I called the phone just now to find it. I also texted you a half hour ago to see if you wanted breakfast.”

 

“Oh.” _What does ‘texted’ mean?_ He turns the telephone over in his hand to see if it will show him what she means, which draws another sigh. Plucking the telephone from his hand, she slides her finger across the screen.

 

“Unlock it like this, remember?” She doesn’t say it, but the silent _you idiot_ tacked on the end is pretty obvious, even to him. She puts the telephone back into his hand and waits with her eyebrows raised.

 

“Oh, yeah.” What was that code? Um. . .

 

“0704,” she prompts impatiently. “Can’t even remember your. . . never mind. I brought you some books.” She turns back to the table without showing him what a text is, but he doesn’t mind because he is pretty excited about the prospect of books. Something to do with his downtime, keep his mind occupied so it doesn't start wandering down dark, painful corridors.

 

She picks the books up off the table and hands the first one to him. The cover says The Hunger Games and has a stylized drawing of a bird with an arrow in its beak. Before he can check the back cover, she hands him the next one, called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The artwork on the cover makes him blink. Huh? Two more books join the stack: Ender’s Game and Feed (the photo on the cover is of the back of a man’s bald head).

 

“Primer on modern life,” Hill says, dusting off her hands. “Those are library books, so if you lose them, you own me about a hundred bucks.”

 

“You got them at the library?” he asks, suddenly all excited. 

 

“Yeah, so keep track of them.” 

 

The library! How could he have forgotten about the library? Warm and dry with all of the books he could wish for. Trying to read while Bucky silently flirted with the girls at the next table with his eyebrows. Blowing spit wads that hit Elmer McDougall in the back of the head then ducking down so he wouldn’t see who did it. Bucky missing Elmer and getting his girl instead. Trying not to giggle so they wouldn’t get kicked out again.

 

Getting beat up behind the library by Elmer on the day that Bucky was home with the ‘flu.

 

So, mostly good memories there. Even Elmer later came around, and shook their hands the day he shipped out. Died in Tunisia in 1943, leaving behind a wife and one-year-old daughter (How old would she be now?).

 

“I want to go to the library!” he blurts out eagerly.

 

“You do?”

 

“Yeah. My ma worked until six every night, so we went there after school all the time. I would read or draw while Bucky hit on all the girls.”

 

She chuckles. “All right, we can go there sometime. Today we’re going grocery shopping.”

 

His excitement dies in his throat. “That store on the corner?” _Crossing the street. Using a debit card. Gulp._

 

“Oh, no. That’s a mini-mart. There’s a real grocery store a couple miles away. They have everything.”

 

“Oh. Ok. Let’s go then.”

 

“No shirt no shoes no service,” Hill says with raised eyebrows. He hasn’t heard that saying before, but obviously she wants him to get his shoes, which he was about to do anyway. He wants to answer back something snappy but then he remembers about Operation Get Agent Hill to Like Me.

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says in the most cooperative tone he can manage, which draws a smile. Perfect. Good work, Rogers.

 

* * *

 

If he thought the furniture store was overwhelming, the grocery store is INSANE. Another automatic door that nearly closes on him when he doesn’t move fast enough (Hill, rolling her eyes, has to haul him in by the sleeve). Shelf after shelf of different types of breakfast cereal in brightly colored boxes, rows and rows of cans (TWELVE kinds of chili? Who needs that many choices in chili?!). Little cups of yogurt that come prepackaged with different fruits. An entire refrigerated case containing gallons and gallons of milk with various colors of caps. Pieces of meat on little trays wrapped in shiny plastic packaging. He can’t even choose. How could one possibly make coherent choices with that many possibilities?

 

And so _crowded_! Steve pushes the cart, and every time he comes around a corner, he nearly runs people over. Little old ladies with hairnets. Bored-looking teenagers traveling in packs, with piercings through their noses and eyebrows and who-knows-where else. Grubby-faced children trailing their mothers. Women in short skirts and far more makeup than he’s used to. He isn’t even able to think properly with so many other people around. And it doesn’t help that several of the women give him appreciative glances, and one even gooses his backside as she goes by, making him yelp. When Hill turns around and gives him a questioning glance, he quickly coughs to cover his embarrassment.

 

Again, Hill mostly chooses for him, loads up his cart with eggs (all the same size and color!) in a little cardboard carton, a jug of milk with a red lid (why red? No idea), bread (pre-sliced!), peanut butter in a squishy jar (not glass?), shiny packages of various kinds of meats, different kinds of soup in cans with red and white labels.

 

“What kind of soup do you like?”

 

“I don’t know, Ma’am. I’ve never had soup from a can before. My ma always made broth from boiling beef or chicken bones.”

 

“Ok, disgusting. Let’s get you chicken noodle and tomato.”

 

They enter an aisle that holds bags and bags of flour, some of which says “enriched” (who knows what that means?), and an entire shelf filled with different varieties of sugar. He could bake! He could make pies, and bread, and, and—!

 

“I want to bake!” he says excitedly.

 

Hill laughs. “Sure, partner. Whatever you want. What ingredients do you need?”

 

He doesn’t know which of the dozens of types of flour and sugar to get, so Hill grabs a few items, apparently at random: some of that “enriched” Flour ($4 a bag!—what’s it “enriched” with, platinum?), white and brown sugar, baking powder.

 

“I need yeast,” he says.

 

“Um. . .” Hill scans the shelves. “That’s not something I normally buy.” She finally reaches up to the top shelf and pulls down a little paper packet. “Here it is,” she says, tossing it into the cart.

 

“No, Ma’am, that’s not yeast,” he says with a frown, pulling the package out again. “It’s supposed to be a little cube, kind of. . . squishy.”

 

“Ok, yuck. I don’t know anything about that. This is yeast. If you want to know how to use it, you’ll have to read the package because I’ve never made anything with yeast before.” She takes the packet from his hand and tosses it back into the cart. “Anything else?”

 

“Yeah, lard.”

 

“Gross! Nobody sells lard anymore. Try shortening.” She holds up a blue canister. “Or butter.”

 

“Butter? Like, real butter? They sell that?”

 

Hill wrinkles her nose at him. “Of course they sell that. There are probably twenty brands of it in the refrigerated case.”

 

Oh. Of course there are. This is 2012 after all. Apparently the year of excess. This is definitely going to take some getting used to.

 

“Come on, we’ll go back and get some.”

 

She goes back to the dairy case, with him dutifully pushing the cart behind her. After she picks out the butter, he follows her around the corner, and there in front of them are bins and bins full of beautiful, gleaming fruits and vegetables, all stacked up in perfect rows. He stops in his tracks and gapes at it.

 

“There’s. . . fruit?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“FRESH fruit?”

 

“Yeah,” she says nonchalantly, “what kind do you want?” She picks up something small and oval and sort of brownish. “Kiwi?”

 

He doesn’t know what kiwi is. It almost looks. . . “Is that. . . furry?”

 

“Yeah, kind of, I guess. I never eat the skin. You’ve never had one?”

 

“Nuh-uh.”

 

A slow grin appears on her face. “Well then, you definitely need to try kiwi.” She tosses it into a bag and drops it into the cart. “Have you had mango?”

 

He shakes his head. Another bag hits the cart.

 

She holds up something yellowish-tannish, big and lumpy, with spiky greenery sticking out the top. “Pineapple?”

 

“No, Ma’am.”

 

“Starfruit?”

 

“That’s real?”

 

“Yep. Nectarine?” Her lip is pulled up in a teasing grin. She seems to be enjoying his ignorance a little too much.

 

“Isn’t that a peach?”

 

“Like a peach, but hairless. Cantaloupe?”

 

“No.”

 

She’s giggling now as she bags each type of fruit and places it into the cart. “We can have a tasting party.” Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and he doesn’t like it. “Dragonfruit?”

 

“Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”

 

“It’s real. Guava?”

 

“No.”

 

“Papaya?”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh, you’ll hate that one. Passionfruit?”

 

He sighs. “No.”

 

“Oranges?”

 

“I’ve had those. My ma got some at Christmas once. You can get them this time of year?”

 

“Right. Christmas oranges in July coming up. Bananas?”

 

“I’ve had those too. I’m not a complete rube.”

 

She makes a little hrumphing noise. “Ok, fine. I was just teasing you. Do you like them?” 

 

“Of course.”

 

When the oranges and bananas have been added to the cart, along with apples that he assures her he has eaten many times, she says, “What about vegetables?”

 

“Yes, Ma’am. How about parsnips?”

 

She makes a face. “What the hell are those?”

 

“Um. Parsnips. They’re. . . parsnips.” How is he supposed to describe parsnips? Doesn’t everyone who what those are? “White, kind of like carrots. You’ve never had them?” He asks in a gently teasing tone.

 

“Can’t say as I have, no.”

 

“Well, Ma’am, then maybe you should have a tasting party too.” He looks over the vegetables until he finally locates parsnips, which he bags up. Next to them are the turnips, so he grabs a few of those too, while Hill gives him a skeptical look which makes him think she hasn’t had those either. 

 

When he has put them in the cart, along with carrots, green beans, onions, and potatoes, he looks around, trying to figure out what else he wants, but there is such a bewildering array of choices that he can’t even think straight. 

 

Hill, who has been waiting with an exaggerate display of patience while he tries to find what he wants, puts her hands on her hips and says “Ok, anything else?”

 

He has no idea, none whatsoever. All of this excess is making his head hurt, so he just stands there blankly until she shrugs and says, “Fine. Let’s go then.”

 

She leads the way, threading her way through clumps of people and around other shopping carts while he focuses on following without getting mowed down. Of course, with the cart he can’t move as quickly as she can, so he gets left behind. He can see her through the crowd, already standing in line, glaring at him with her arms folded while he works his way through the people who are standing around without seeming to have any particular destination in mind. In his haste he accidentally clips an elderly woman’s heels with the cart.

 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he says to her, backing up and bumping into a rather large man behind him.

 

“Watch where you’re going, sunny!” the woman barks at him, just as the man behind him growls “Look out, ya fuckin’ douchebag.”

 

Steve is looking back and forth between the two of them, wondering if he’s going to have to use his fists to get out of this, when he feels Hill’s hand on his arm.

 

“Easy there, big guy,” she mutters to him, and then says to the woman, “My brother is sorry. He’s autistic. Crowds upset him.”

 

Hill pats the back of Steve’s hand and starts to gently pull him toward the register. “Come on, honey, it’ll be all right. We’ll get you home to momma soon.”

 

The elderly woman’s scowl melts into an indulgent smile as she backs up to let them pass. He’s not sure what Hill meant by “autistic”, but he has an idea and he doesn’t think he likes it.

 

As soon as they get back to the line Hill had been in, she drops his hand and starts unloading items onto the counter next to the clerk, even though she isn't finished with the previous customer yet. He starts to help her, and then the clerk takes off some items at the front of the line and the counter moves by itself, carrying the groceries toward her on its own. More modern magic, apparently commonplace as no one seems to even notice it’s happening.

 

The cashier isn’t punching any buttons on the cash register, just pushing the groceries across a little window on the counter where they make a beeping sound, and then the names and prices appear on another window above her head. He watches the total add up, trying to remind himself to breathe. He has plenty of money, right? Even though the total is now almost a hundred dollars (!!), he can pay for it. Or Agent Hill can. 

 

Finally the cashier says, “$121.37” in a bored tone, and then just stares at him. Right, they’re supposed to pay now. He turns and looks to Hill expectantly, thinking she will pay because she hasn’t given him any cash from that magical bank account she claims he has.

 

“Don’t look at me, buddy,” Hill says. “Use your debit card.”

 

Oh, no, that little plastic card, the one that he doesn’t know how to use. She’s going to figure out that he doesn’t understand about that little plastic card. Well, there’s no getting out of it now. Maybe he could fake a heart attack or something? That probably wouldn’t go over very well.

 

Chewing the inside of his cheek, he pulls out his wallet and looks at the cards. Which one was the debit card again? God, he hates this century.

 

“The red one, remember?” Hill says impatiently.

 

“Um. ok.” He extracts the red card and holds it out to the cashier, but she just points to a little machine on the counter.

 

“Swipe your card, please,” she says. There’s that word again. What does it mean?

 

There is a moment where Hill and the cashier just silently stare at him. He can feel the rest of the people in line doing the same, all waiting for him to do what he’s supposed to do, but he has no idea how to do it. Prickly heat crawls up his neck. Sweat dampens his collar and he can feel his ears turning red with anxiety and embarrassment. 

 

Finally Hill points to the side of the device. “Right here,” she says, like she’s talking to a particularly dense toddler. Pressure appears behind his eyes, and he presses his lips together to keep his emotions under control. Only toddlers cry in the grocery store.

 

He frowns at the machine. He’s going to have to admit he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She already thinks he’s an idiot, obviously, and this is going to prove it. Is there a rock he can crawl under or something? He can’t stand all of the accusing eyes on him right now.

 

“You do it,” he blurts out in a panic, holding out the card toward her.

 

“No, you have to learn how to do it,” she says, pushing his hand away. “Oh, God, don’t give me those puppy dog eyes again.”

 

“Ma’am? What are you talking about?”

 

She gestures toward his face. “You know what I mean.” 

 

“I’m not trying to—I didn’t—“ _OH GOD NO CRYING IN THE GROCERY STORE!_

 

While he is standing there like a moron, staring anxiously at the machine and trying desperately not to cry, Hill grunts “ _Whatever_ ”, yanks the card out his hand, and slides it quickly through the side of the machine, which beeps contentedly. She taps a couple of buttons, too fast for him to follow. “There, see? That wasn’t so hard,” she spits out, shoving the card back into his hand. “Ok, now put in your code.”

 

Code? What code? There’s a code? His mind has gone frustratingly blank.

 

“Come on, don’t tell me you forgot the code?! It’s the same as the front door.”

 

Oh, that code! He tries to hit the buttons for 0704, but they are too small and he ends up hitting several wrong buttons as well. The machine buzzes at him. He is very aware of the line of people behind him. Their eyebrows all make straight lines of annoyance.

 

Hill huffs, pushes his hand out of the way, and punches in the code herself. “There,” she says. “Next time you’ll do it yourself.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he agrees quickly, anything to get out of there. Hill made it look so easy, but he still doesn’t know how she made the machine work.

 

The cashier holds out a long strip of paper, which Hill takes and starts pushing the reloaded cart toward the door. He hustles to follow. He can still feel the tears prickling at the backs of his eyes, but he’ll be damned if he’ll let them fall.

 

He hurries ahead of her and starts unloading the groceries into the trunk as soon as she has it open, trying to prove he can be useful, that he's not just an idiot who doesn’t know what “swipe” means and can’t figure out how to use a debit card. After the second time he takes a bag out of her hand, she just stands back with her arms folded. Her nostrils are flared and her eyebrows are pulled together in the middle, just like his drawing, so somehow he has annoyed her again, even though he is trying desperately to do everything right. 

 

 _Babysitting_.

 

* * *

 

When they get back to his place, Hill grabs some of the bags and heads toward the front door before he can tell her that he can carry them all, so he loads himself down with the rest and hurries after, makes it to the door before her and even manages to open it for her, not that she seems to notice or care. She just drops all her bags on the kitchen counter and heads back toward the front door. Is she leaving already? What about tasting all those fruits?

 

“Do you want to stay for lunch? We can have some. . . soup,” he says, but what he’s really saying is _don’t leave me alone_.

 

“Sorry, I gotta get back to SHIELD. I promised Fury I’d be back by two.”

 

“Oh. Ok. That’s fine,” he says to the floor. Yeah, he can pretend like that’s fine, at least as long as he doesn’t make eye contact. He expects she will head out the door, but she doesn’t move. Now he’s afraid to look, because she will be giving him the arms folded/flared nostrils irritated expression again.

 

_(babysitting)_

 

When he finally gets uncomfortable enough to glance up, she doesn’t look annoyed. The corner of her mouth is quirked up and her eyes are almost. . . soft.

 

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” she says, “and you have some books to read now. And you need to try out that debit card on your own. Take a field trip to that corner market and get some candy or something. That’s your homework.”

 

“I’m not—“ he starts, but stops himself before he can finish that thought with ‘a child.’ “I’m capable of taking care of myself. And I don’t want any candy.” He realizes after he says it that he sounds petulant, wishes he could take the words back.

 

Her mouth twists up in amusement. “Right. Ok. Well, whatever you want to buy then.” That soft look is back, and she continues in a gentler voice, “Just. . . go to the store. You can do it. You’re going to be ok, Rogers.”

 

“I know,” he assures her, because he doesn’t want her pity. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

 

“Ok, sure you will.” She turns to go, has her hand on the knob when he thinks of something else he has been meaning to ask her.

 

“Agent Hill?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I was wondering, about my fr—my colleagues, what happened to all of them?”

 

“Oh. Well, I didn’t know any of them personally, but I know Howard got married and had a son.”

 

Steve grabs that piece of information, rolls it around in his brain trying to make sense of it. “He did? I never thought he’d settle down. He didn’t seem like the ‘one woman’ type.”

 

“His son is Tony Stark. He’s Ironman.”

 

“Who is that?”

 

“You’ll hear about him, I’m sure. He owns Stark tower in Manhattan. He’s an arrogant son of a—well, you’ll meet him at some point. Anyway, he means well. I think.”

 

“Ok,” Steve says. It makes sense that any son of Howard Stark’s would be arrogant if he took after his old man. He wonders what the kid looks like and who his mother is, if it’s anyone Steve knew? And then he realizes that Howard Stark’s son would hardly be a “kid” anymore, and in fact is probably older than Steve (well, maybe not technically, but still).

 

“All right, see you tomorrow,” Hill says, and then she’s gone and he’s alone in his apartment, in the silence that threatens to swallow him whole. 

 

* * *

 

June 29, 2012

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Progress report, day 3

 

I thought you were going to talk to him about keeping his shirt on, for fuck’s sake.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: Progress report, day 3

 

You said that, not me. These emails are to report progress, not file complaints. So report.

 

F.

 

* * *

 

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 3

 

The puppy dog eyes are killing me, boss. He won’t use the debit card. I had to rescue him from an old lady at the grocery store. He irons his t-shirts, and he was excited about going to the library. I don’t know how he’s ever going to survive in this century. 

 

On the plus side, we bought enough food to feed an army for a week. So he probably has enough to last him at least a day or two. 

 

M.

 

p.s he asked me what happened to all of his “colleagues”. Permission to have Coulson put together some files for him?

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

CC: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: Progress report, day 3

 

Permission granted. Cc-ing Coulson.

 

F.

 

* * *

 

From: Agent P. Coulson

To: Director N. Fury

CC: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 3

 

I’m on it, Sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

 

P.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 3

 

Thanks. And I think he’s afraid of being alone. Don’t know what to do about that, but it might be nice to find him some friends.

 

M.

 

 

 


	7. Supplemental lesson: Getting around in the city

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Navigating by landmarks doesn't work so well if all the landmarks are gone.

Supplemental lesson: Getting around in the city

Learning target: Student will

—Not get lost in the city and interrupt instructor’s date for a ride, for crying out loud

 

* * *

 

As Steve is standing with his hand on the doorknob, his stomach grumbles, and then he realizes he has food, bags and bags of it, so much that it probably won’t all fit in his fridge. To take his mind off the silence, he starts unloading the bags and filling the cupboards. When he gets to the bags of fruit, he hesitates for a moment, then finally chooses a banana to eat. At least something will be familiar. 

 

But it’s not. It’s really not. The banana tastes nothing like he remembers; it’s bland and flavorless, but he finishes it anyway, tosses the peel into the trash, and then goes and sits on the sofa, rubbing his hands on the knees of his pants and listening to the noises from the street outside. So many people, all hurrying to and fro, doing God knows what. None of them even know he exists. He’s completely alone here.

 

There were times, in the army, surrounded by noise and unwashed men on all sides, that he would have killed for solitude like this. Now, it just reminds him of the first night in his apartment after his mom died, after he told Bucky he would be fine and Bucky believed him and left. Why had Steve done that? Punishing himself, he supposes, as if it were somehow his fault his mom went away. Knowing what he knows now, he would have run after Bucky and told him _come back please come back don’t leave me here alone I’ll do anything not to be left alone_.

 

Too late for that. Bucky is dead and he’s alone for real this time, no going back. _So stop wallowing already_ , the Bucky-voice in his head chides him. Restless, he gets up from the couch and stands at the window with his arms tightly folded, looking down at the overwhelming press of humanity on the sidewalk below. Everyone in a hurry, everyone seemingly knowing exactly where they’re going, unlike him who is adrift.

 

He has books! He can read. Good idea. Getting lost in a book will take his mind off the anxiety that gnaws at him, maybe take him to a better place, give him a more positive view of this modern world with all its wonders. Help him decide it’s not all as empty as it seems.

 

With that hope in mind, he settles himself in the wrong-color chair, next to the window. He picks up the top book on the stack, Feed, opens it and starts to read:

 

_We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck._

 

He frowns at the page, closes the book, and examines the front cover. Just a bald head, but now he can make out faint words written across it, almost blending into the skin: the first line of the book, and then a bunch of others mostly too light to read. He spots the word “stupid.” 

 

Still frowning, he opens the book again and flips through the first few pages, skimming rapidly. The narrator is callow and vapid, the prose sophomoric, almost childlike. He decides this book will not help him gain a more positive view of the modern world, so he sets it down and picks up the next one, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. 

 

There aren’t any sheep on the cover. No idea what that title means.

 

A little more cautiously, he opens the book and starts to read. 

 

_A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard. . ._

 

He knows what each of those words means separately, but together they completely fail to make any sort of coherent image in his head. Again he flips through and skims the first few pages, which describe a third World War ending in most of earth becoming uninhabitable. Shaking his head, he closes the book and drops it onto the table.

 

He slides his finger over the rest of the titles Hill brought him. The Hunger Games (doesn’t sound especially positive either), Ender’s Game (what sort of name is Ender? The end of what?). Hill called these books a “primer on modern life.” What did she mean by that? Was there some sort of third world war that no one had told him about? Fury’s “briefings” didn’t mention anything about it. So far everything he has seen has looked fine, more than fine actually. Abundant, shiny, overwhelming. So why are all the books so depressing?

 

Shaking his head, he pushes himself out of his chair and heads back to the kitchen to fix himself something else to eat. He wants to bake, but instead of a temperature dial, the oven has a little window and unlabeled buttons that don’t seem to do anything. Finding it completely incomprehensible, he gives up and makes himself a sandwich. He thinks about trying one of the little fuzzy fruits (what did she call it? Dodo, or something like that? Some kind of bird name anyway), but it looks and smells so unfamiliar that he puts it back into the fridge without taking a bite. Anyway, they were going to have a tasting party, right? He hopes maybe they’ll do that tomorrow, if Hill doesn’t have to race off again.

 

He decides to take a walk, to try to get out of this funk he is in. He has to go to that little store, to prove to Agent Hill (and to himself) that he can cross a street and use a debit card like a grown-up. It’s getting toward evening and he knows it’s going to cool off soon, so he pulls on his jacket because he hates being cold. He is almost out the door before he remembers that Agent Hill told him to always take that telephone with him. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s used to following orders, so he tucks it in his pocket and heads out to the busy sidewalks. Everyone around him is staring at their telephones while they walk, so he keeps his elbows in and dodges around them to keep from getting plowed into.

 

At the corner he stands for several minutes looking longingly across the street at the entrance to the mini-market, while cars zip by and everyone completely ignores him. It’s no use. No one will stop, and there’s no way he can get across the street without becoming a grease smear on someone’s front bumper.

 

Finally giving up, he jams his hands into his pants pockets and turns the other direction, around the corner away from his apartment building. Maybe he can find another mini-market to try, or find a less busy street to cross.

 

He isn’t really paying attention to where he’s going, he’s too distracted by all of the insanity around him: light-up billboards that flash with ever-changing pictures, advertisements featuring mostly naked women (he wants to get some paint and give them some clothes because they look cold. They also look like they could stand to eat a cheeseburger), angry-looking men in suits walking briskly while shouting into their telephones, a girl with wildly-colored hair and multiple piercings in her nose and lip. No one smiles, no one gives him a friendly nod. They all look tense and distracted (although he imagines he looks the same). When he thought about the future as a kid, this was never anything close to what he pictured it being like.

 

He gets to a corner where there is a stoplight, and when it changes, he flows across the street in the middle of crowd, and keeps going, trying not to gawk at all the strange sights around every corner. A woman in a short skirt glares at him for looking too long, so he quickly turns his head the other direction, and realizes with a start that he recognizes the building in front of him. It’s Luigi’s restaurant, where Bucky dragged him along on a double-date with two girls, who ordered a whole bottle of wine then left without them when they couldn’t pay the bill. He and Bucky ended up washing dishes for over an hour, then had to walk home after midnight. The building is the same, but it’s a different restaurant now. Bunker Vietnamese, the lighted sign says.

 

OH! They walked home from here! That means he’s close to his old apartment, just down this street and around the corner. With a destination in mind, he starts walking faster now, head swiveling trying to find familiar landmarks. The tobacco shop on the corner used to be a newsstand, a nail salon was the beautician’s where Bucky’s mom got her hair done, a store selling electrical gadgets and telephones used to be a bookshop. . .

 

With growing excitement, he rounds the corner to the street where he grew up, and stops dead right in the middle of the sidewalk. His apartment building is _gone_ , and in its place is an empty parking lot with a chain-link fence around it. Steve stares stupidly at it. His home is gone, the whole building is gone, everyone he ever knew is gone, his whole _life_ is gone. 

 

Someone bumps his shoulder and pushes past him: a huge man with tattoos all over his bald head, who grumbles, “Keep moving, dipshit,” as he passes. Steve blinks at him, unable to formulate a response. Luckily the man keeps walking without looking back.

 

While Steve stands motionless on the sidewalk, other people flow around him like a river, and the motion propels him forward until he reaches the saggy fence. He hooks his fingers in the chain link and peers through, trying to see the outline of the building that used to be there, where the stairs were, his front door, but it’s no use. He can’t even picture it anymore. It’s just a sad, empty lot, with weeds growing up through the cracks in the broken blacktop.

 

He takes a step back and nearly stumbles on an uneven patch of pavement. When he looks down, he discovers a plaque in the concrete, half-buried in dirt. He digs at it with the toe of his sneaker until he can make out the inscription:

 

**The building on this site was the birthplace of**

**Captain Steven Grant Rogers (July 4, 1919-February 16, 1945),**

**also known as Captain America,**

**who lost his life in a plane crash during the final months of World War II.**

**May his sacrifice never be forgotten.**   
****

 

Steve rocks back on his heels, blinking stupidly at the plaque. It doesn’t make any sense to him. Someone put a plaque here about him? _Why_?

 

Another thought occurs to him: If there’s a plaque about him, maybe there’s one about Bucky too! Bucky’s building was just around the corner. He could go and look. Maybe there will even be someone there who remembers Bucky or his family. He had a little sister, Rebecca. She could still be alive, right?

 

With a last glance at the plaque, Steve hurries down the block, almost running over a young man wearing dungarees and a t-shirt with a wild design. He mumbles an apology, but the young man shouts back “Watch where you’re going, asshole!” without even looking up from his telephone.

 

Bucky’s building is still there! The brick facade has been spruced up a little, the sagging wooden staircase has been replaced with concrete, and there are pots of flowers sitting next to the entrance. He eagerly bounds up the steps, excited about something for the first time in days. There is a list of names of residents near the front door. His finger is trembling as he runs it down the list, looking for Barnes, or some other name he recognizes. He would even be happy to see Podlowski, the name of the bully who lived on the floor above Bucky when they were kids.

 

He reaches the bottom of the list without finding a single name he knows. 

 

Chewing on his lip, he stares at the list until the letters blur together. No one. Not a single person he knows, in a building that used to be filled with, if not friends, then at least nodding acquaintances. People who would have been sad if he died, maybe. Probably _were_ sad when they thought he died. People who knew and loved Bucky. And now they are all _gone_. His guts give a twist.

 

Someone jostles his elbow pushing past him to get into the building. He flinches away, but the person keeps walking without even looking at him. He has to get away from here. 

 

Steve starts walking again, with a vague idea of finding the cemetery where his parents are buried. This time he keeps his head down. There’s nothing left here he wants to see anyway. All of his excitement has drained away, leaving a gnawing emptiness in his chest.

 

He can’t find the cemetery. His feet should know the way even if his head isn’t in the game, but the street where it should be just isn’t there. He keeps wandering farther and farther afield, crossing streets only when there is a traffic light, watching out of the corner of his eye for landmarks, but nothing looks familiar now, not even the shapes of the building or the names of the streets. Nothing and no one and nothing. It’s all gone. Everything and everyone he knew and loved is gone and he’s completely alone.

 

The sun has sunk down behind the buildings, and the crowds have thinned out by the time he raises his head and realizes he has absolutely no idea where he is or how to get back. He can tell by the setting sun which way is west, but that doesn't help him a whole lot because he wasn't paying attention enough to know which direction his apartment is from here. Maybe north?

 

He stands on the street corner for a few minutes trying to get his bearings. He thinks he needs to go north (well, it _might_ be north), but he would have to cross a busy street without a traffic light to get there, so that won’t work. He starts out to the left instead, another block, then another, finding no way to get across without getting hit by one of the fast-moving cars.

 

A few blocks later, the sun has completely disappeared, along with nearly everyone on the streets, and he has lost track of which way north even is anymore. He is well and truly lost and doesn’t know how to get home.

 

_Home_.

 

He has no home, not anymore. Not here. Not now. It’s all gone. He can never go back there, then. _Never_.

 

If he just disappeared, would anyone even notice? No one knows him, and no one seems to care if he lives or dies. Everyone thought he was dead for years and they all just went on with their lives like he never existed at all. 

 

His chest is tight and there is a lump in his throat and pressure behind his eyes, tears trying to force their way out. He can barely see where he’s going, so he stops, right in the middle of the sidewalk. No one bumps into him, because there is no one around. It’s almost completely dark now. He doesn’t know what time it is, but it must be late because it’s almost July and he knows the sun doesn’t go down until almost nine p.m. That means he must have been walking without thinking where he was going for over three hours now. His stomach grumbles out a complaint over the lack of dinner, but he has nothing to eat and no money, so he tries to ignore it.

 

There is a bench at the side of the road, covered in graffiti. **Fuck you, Bitch** , it proclaims in big looping letters. Yeah, that’s how this century feels, like a big Fuck you. He sits on the bench anyway, so the words are behind him and he doesn’t have to look at them.

 

Steve wants desperately not to cry, but the tears are pushing their way out. He ducks his head and wipes his face with the sleeve of his jacket. How is he going to get back to his apartment? He has no money, so he can’t get a cab or a bus (not that he knows where to find one anyway). 

 

Suddenly he remembers: he has a telephone in his pocket. He can call for help.

 

But whom can he call? He pulls the telephone from his pocket and punches in the code with fingers that feel much too fat and clumsy for this century. It takes him a moment to remember how to find the telephone numbers in all of those little pictures. He has no idea what the rest of them do, and he isn’t sure he wants to know.

 

When he finally has the telephone numbers up, he sits and stares at them through bleary eyes. Only two numbers: Agent Hill and Director Fury. He doesn’t want to call either of them. What would they think if they saw their prize asset, that they spent so much time and effort recovering, lost and crying his eyes out over nothing?

 

He looks up from his telephone, trying to think of some other way to get home. The only person he can see is a lone woman, wearing a tight black skirt and sleeveless blouse, standing under the streetlamp about twenty meters away. She’s looking away from him, smoking a cigarette. She is all hard angles—the triangles formed by her elbow and her fingers holding the cigarette, her skinny legs as she paces back and forth on dangerously high heels. The sound of her shoes— _click click click_ —carries to him on the night air.

 

She has turned toward him now, so he studies her face in the bluish light from the streetlamp: the harsh planes of her cheekbones and nose. The thin, arching eyebrows. Her very red lips pursed around the cigarette. She is wearing far too much make-up, but still everything about her looks tired, like she is carrying a heavy weight. He feels his fingers twitch: he wants to sketch her, but he has nothing to draw on or with.

 

The woman drops her cigarette and grinds it out under the toe of her shoe, then she’s walking _click click click_ toward him with a quick, purposeful stride. Her mouth is an angry red slash. “Hey,” she barks, “you gonna pay for that?”

 

Pay for what? He doesn’t understand.

 

She flings her arms out. “Moron! If you ain’t shopping, don’t sit there staring in the windows!”

 

Suddenly he gets it. She is a prostitute, of course. He’s staring at her, and she thinks he wants to hire her. 

 

“I—I don’t have any money,” is all he can think of to say, wishing he could disappear. “Sorry, Ma’am.” He pulls his shoulders in and ducks his head in embarrassment. His face is still wet, so he tries to wipe it on his sleeve without her noticing, but of course she does notice. He’s not looking at her anymore, but he can hear her sigh.

 

“Aww. What’s the matter, honey?”

 

He thinks at first that she is making fun of him, but when he glances up at her, he sees that her expression has softened. The unexpected sympathy pushes more tears to the surface. He wrestles for control while he swipes at his face again.

 

“I’m ok,” he mutters.

 

“Yeah, sure.” The bench creaks as she sits down next to him. He wants to stop crying, but he knows if he looks up, the tears will break loose again, so he keeps his head down. After a moment he feels her bony hand pat his knee. “Sucks, don’t it? Where you from, honey?”

 

“Here. Well, sort of,” he replies lamely. “It looks different from how I remember.”

 

“What’s up with those sad eyes?”

 

“I’m sort of. . . lost.”

 

“Lost like. . . metaphorically or literally?”

 

_Both_. “Literally. I don’t know how to get home.”

 

“Oh. Can you call someone?”

 

He shakes his head, thinking of Agent Hill’s disapproving glare. “She doesn’t want to come get me.”

 

“How do you know? Girlfriend? She break up with you?”

 

He shakes his head. “No, Ma’am. Nothing like that. Just. . . I don’t want to bother her. It’s a long drive for her.”

 

“Maybe she’ll come. It’s worth a try.”

 

He looks down at the telephone in his hand, not sure that’s correct. Maybe if he just knew which way to go, he could get back on his own, but he doesn’t even know his own address.

 

“Just call her,” the woman coaxes, her voice gentle and reassuring. “What have you got to lose?”

 

_Everything_. “Ok.” He isn’t sure how to actually make the call, but as soon as he taps Hill’s name, the window says “Connecting.” Well, no backing out of it now.

 

Agent Hill answers on the second ring. “Hill,” she says shortly.

 

“Oh. Um. This is Steve.”

 

“Yes, I know,” she says brusquely. “What do you want?”

 

“I’m kind of. Well. I don’t exactly. Um.”

 

“What?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Don’t exactly what?”

 

“Oh. I’m. I’m lost.”

 

“Huh. How did that happen?”

 

“I was going to that store, but I. Well. I turned the wrong way, and I guess I went too far, and now. Um. I don’t know where I am.”

 

“Can you take a cab home?”

 

“No, Ma’am. I don’t have any money with me.”

 

“What happened to your money?”

 

“I don’t have any. You took the money. I have that red card.”

 

“That’s the debit card,” she says in an overly patient tone, like she’s talking to a five year old. “You can use that one.”

 

He chews his lip. Not feeling able to use a debit card was what got him into this mess to begin with. Well, not only that. It was also Red Skull and an airplane carrying a bomb, but there’s nothing he can do about that and if he thinks about it too much he's going to be crying again so _Try to focus, Rogers_.

 

He hesitates too long, because Hill finally gives an almost inaudible sigh. “Fine, I’ll come pick you up.”

 

“I’m not sure where I am. Maybe I can ask someone.”

 

“Don’t bother,” she says briskly, “I can track your phone.”

 

“You can _what_?!” he squeaks in surprise. So that’s why she wanted him to take his telephone everywhere with him. He’s sure he doesn’t like that, even though in this case it’s going to save his bacon.

 

Now the sigh is a little louder. “It’s really no big deal, ok? Just sit tight, I’ll be there soon.”

 

“Oh. Ok. Goodbye.” He waits for her to say goodbye too, but soon realizes she has already disconnected. Well, so much for his attempts to get her to like him. It was probably doomed anyway.

 

“All right, babe,” the woman says encouragingly, “she’s going to come get you. That’s good.”

 

“Yeah, I guess.” He rubs at a grease-mark on the shiny surface of his telephone/tracking device/electronic nanny. Symbol of all that is disturbing and confusing about this century. He wants to throw it in the nearest trash can. If they can build a telephone like this that fits in your hand, why can’t they build a time machine that will take him back to 1945 so he can tell himself not to get on that plane?

 

“Since you’re ok, I’m going to move on. Won’t get any business if I’m sitting here with you.”

 

“Oh. Ok.”

 

With a final pat to his knee, she pushes herself off the bench and wraps her arms tightly across her midsection to ward off the evening chill. He stands up too, because a gentleman stands when a lady does.

 

“I’m Steve, by the way,” he says. “What’s your name?”

 

Her painted-on eyebrows arch in surprise. “Been a while since anyone asked me my name. It’s Shauna.”

 

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

 

Now her red lips curve up into a twisted half-smile. “Nice to meet you too, Steve.” Shivering, she rubs her hands up and down her arms, which are dotted with goose-flesh. 

 

Steve shrugs off his lightweight jacket and holds it out to her. “Would you like my jacket?”

 

Her smile turns incredulous. “Really? You’re offering me your jacket? To keep?” 

 

“Yes, ma’am. You look cold, so I thought. Um. Well.” 

 

“That’s very sweet. Thanks, honey.” She takes the jacket and pulls it around her shoulders with a noise of contentment. “Your mama raised you right. I hope things get better.”

 

“For you too.”

 

“Already did.” Her heels click on the pavement as she walks off, past the corner where she had been standing, and out of sight over the crest of the hill. Steve wants to follow her, to make sure she gets where she’s going all right, but Hill said to stay where he was, so he sinks back down onto the bench. Without his jacket, he’s soon shivering in his thin t-shirt. He hates being cold so much. It’s like it gets in his bones and chills him from the inside out.

 

He has plenty of time to think while waiting for Agent Hill to arrive. Plenty of time to stew and worry, which has always been one of his specialties. He used to drive Bucky crazy with it. “What if we lose our jobs? What if I have an asthma attack and I can’t pay the doctor? What if we can’t make the rent? What if. . .” Bucky used to hold him down and threaten to sit on him if he didn’t knock it off. “Today’s got enough trouble without borrowing from tomorrow,” Bucky would say, with his arm wrapped around Steve’s thin neck to stop him from pacing anxiously. 

 

“But what if. . .”

 

Funny how in all those worries, he never had a clue how wrong things could really go. “What if you fall off the side of a mountain and die and I’m left all alone? What if I crash a plane in the arctic and wake up in the wrong century?”

 

* * *

 

Hill finally arrives after nearly an hour. Her hair is pulled into a loose ponytail instead of her usual tight bun, and she’s wearing a sparkly green blouse and tight black jeans instead of her black jumpsuit. She’s got on far more make-up than she usually wears during the day, and Steve suddenly wonders if he interrupted her on a date.

 

“Thanks for picking me up,” he says as he squeezes into the too-small passenger seat.

 

“It’s ok,” she says flatly, without making eye contact. “Just doing my job.”

 

“I really do appreciate it, ma’am. I don’t know how I got lost. It used to look a lot different around here.”

 

“Yeah, well, things change. You gotta roll with it.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” He’s trying. He’s really trying.

 

When they get to his building, she says “Gimme your phone,” with her hand out. He’s not sure what she wants, but he pulls the telephone from his pocket and puts it in her outstretched hand.

 

Her fingers dance over the screen, much too fast for him to follow, then she pushes the telephone back at him. “There. I put your address in there in case you get lost again.”

 

“Ok. Thank you.”

 

“Yep.” And then she’s obviously waiting for him to get out of the car, so she can get back to whatever she was doing before, whatever she was all dressed up for that he interrupted by stupidly getting lost.

 

“I’m sorry for making you be a taxi service as well as a babysitter,” he says as he pushes himself up out of the car. “It won’t happen again.”

 

“I didn’t really mean that,” she calls after him. ( _Yes she did_ ). “It’s ok, really.”

 

It’s not worth fighting about, he decides. He may as well just play along and get these pointless lessons over with so she can get back to her life, and he can get back to. . . Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? “Ok.”

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow at seven. I’ll teach you how to use all those appliances.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

 

_0704\. The code is 0704,_ he reminds himself on the way up to the door. After he successfully gets the door code entered on the third try, he turns around to discover she has already driven off and he’s alone again.

 


	8. Unit 4: Understanding the basics of modern appliances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve thinks spending a whole dollar to dry laundry is stupid, because sunshine is free and why is Agent Hill rolling her eyes like that?

**Unit 4** : Understanding the basics of modern appliances

 **Learning targets** : Student will:

—Take the fucking phone with him everywhere, and I mean _everywhere_

—Be more observant. For example, the instructor does occasionally smile. She doesn’t always scowl.

—Understand why people in the 21st century might want to have more than 2 outfits

—Learn to use a washer and dryer

—Learn to use the oven

—Not look so smug about knowing more about ovens than the instructor

—Learn to use a microwave

—Keep his huge mitts off the electronics while the instructor hooks everything up

—Disney? Really??

—Learn to watch movies like a grown-up

—Ok, fine, watch kid movies if he wants. 

—Stop being so fucking adorable. Honestly, it’s disgraceful. And so are puppy-dog eyes. Just stop it.

 

* * *

 

 

(June 30, 2012)

 

Steve sleeps poorly, and in the morning, he decides to take a run before Hill arrives, because it always makes him feel better. Not this time, however. He’s so paranoid about getting lost again that he just jogs around the same block five times: down the street, follow the sidewalk around to the right, another right at the next intersection, and another, and another until he ends up back in front of his apartment building again. The only blessing is that there are fewer people on the sidewalks at this time of the morning, so he doesn’t have to worry about getting run over. It’s still cool out, but he warms up quick enough from the exercise that it doesn’t bother him much this time.

 

The girl at the coffee shop is putting out the sign the third time he runs by, and she even smiles at him and gives a little wave. He almost trips over one of their outside tables trying to wave back. He catches himself and keeps going without looking back. He had considered trying to go back and talk to her, but now he’s too embarrassed so he keeps going.

 

The fifth time he runs by his building, he sees Hill’s car parked out front. Oops. And that’s when he realizes he forgot to carry his stupid telephone with him.

 

Hill isn’t waiting in the car or at the door of the building, which means she must already be upstairs, probably looking for him. He hopes she isn’t calling Fury, or worse (is there anything worse than calling Fury? Maybe not). Maybe she’s already got the police out looking for him. Maybe she’s trying to figure out how to implant him with some sort of tracker so he can’t get lost again. Maybe she alerted the media and they are about to publish his picture in the paper under the heading “Missing Senior Citizen”. Maybe she is showing his picture to that cute girl at the coffeeshop right now. . . 

 

Hill isn’t outside his door. He fumbles the keys a few times before he finally gets the door unlocked, and finds her standing next to the mantel with her back to him. When she turns, he realizes that she is holding his little notebook, the one he had been using as a sketchpad. It’s open, he thinks to the page where he drew her with her disapproving eyebrows.

 

He looks up to find that Hill is raising those eyebrows at him now, with the corner of her mouth pulled back, either amused or annoyed, he’s not sure which. Either way, she has no right to look at his notebook without his permission. Taking a deep breath, he crosses the room, takes the notebook from her hand and closes it. He thinks maybe she will apologize, but she just regards him silently for a moment, then her eyebrows give a dismissive little shrug.

 

“Where did you go?”

 

“I was taking a run. Sorry.”

 

Her eyes flick down to his sweat-stained armpits. “Yeah, I can see. I told you I was coming at seven.”

 

“I don’t know what time it is,” he says, then tacks on, “sorry,” under his breath, and instantly hates himself for it. Why does he always feel the need to apologize for everything?

 

“Your phone, remember?”

 

“Not really, sorry.” There’s that automatic sorry again. Just _stop it_. He edges past her and heads toward his bedroom to change, and also to hide the notebook where she won’t be able to find it again.

 

“You need to take your phone with you everywhere,” she calls after him.

 

He stops in the hallway but doesn’t turn. “Why? So you guys can track me?”

 

“No, so if you get lost again, you can call me.”

 

“I can take care of myself, Ma’am.”

 

She huffs through her nose. “Look, I promise I won’t track you unless it’s an emergency, ok?”

 

“Ok.” Without waiting to see if she will say more, he goes into his bedroom and closes the door behind him, not slamming it even though he really wants to. It’s not fair for her to invade his privacy. He drew those sketches for himself, not for anyone else to see, and definitely not for Agent Hill to judge and disapprove of.

 

With a sigh, Steve hides the notebook between the mattress and bedframe of the bed he has yet to actually sleep on, then strips and changes into his only other clothes. He really wants a shower, but he knows that he can’t waste any more of Hill’s time. She’s got important things to do, as she has already told him. The least he can do is make sure she isn’t having to stand around and wait for him any more than she has to.

 

He hangs the sweat-stained shirt on the bedpost to wash out later. The underwear he folds up and tucks under the pants on the bed. It will all have to be washed out by hand tonight so he will have something to wear tomorrow, which isn’t a problem. He even has soap now, thanks to the shopping trip yesterday.

 

He hopes Agent Hill isn’t getting into anything else that he considers private, but by the time he puts on deodorant, runs a comb through his hair, and hurries back out to the living room, he discovers her sitting in his mother’s chair with her shoes off, staring at her telephone, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She is tapping furiously at the screen, but when she sees him, she pushes herself out of the chair and stuffs the telephone into her pocket.

 

“Better?” she asks.

 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

 

“Good.” She sticks her feet back into her shoes and suddenly she’s a good six inches taller. They can almost see eye to eye. “Today you need to learn how to use all the appliances around here.”

 

“Ok.” 

 

“So let’s start with the laundry so you can wash all your dirty clothes. I’m sure you must have a bunch by now.”

 

“Oh.” He’s not sure what she means by appliances for laundry. He hasn’t seen any machine for washing clothes around here, and he doesn’t have enough clothes to fill a machine anyway.

 

“Go ahead and get your laundry.”

 

“Where are we going to wash it?” Maybe there’s a clothesline he hasn’t found yet, but he’s pretty much been through the whole apartment already so he’s not sure where it could be hiding.

 

“Laundry’s on the first floor. Do you need help carrying anything?”

 

“No, Ma’am, I can get it.” He says with a shrug. He goes into the bedroom and collects the shirt and pants. He sticks the underwear and socks into the pockets of the pants so she won’t see them and comes out with the little bundle of clothes under his arm. Hill is waiting for him by the door with a small green box in her hand.

 

Hill’s brow furrows. What has he done wrong this time? “Where’s everything else?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You’ve been here for three days, right? And two weeks in the cabin before that? Where are the rest of your clothes?!”

 

“I just have these.”

 

The furrow gets deeper. “And you’ve been wearing them the whole time?”

 

“I washed them out,” he protests.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed more clothes?!”

 

Now it’s his turn to be confused. “I didn’t need any more. I can wash these out at night and I’ll always have clean clothes in the morning. Why would I need any more?”

 

Hill lets out a bark of a laugh and rubs at her face. “Yeah, ok. Whatever. We’ll have to go clothes shopping later in the week, because you can’t get by with just one change of clothes. What about towels?” Why is she laughing at him? People in this century make no sense at all.

 

“I can reuse them.”

 

“Just _get them_ so we can fill up a batch.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am.” Shaking his head, he fetches the towels from the bathroom and kitchen, even though they don’t need to be washed yet. She heads out the door without giving him time to protest further, so he follows in silence, down the stairs to the end of the hallway on the first floor, where there is a door marked “Laundry”. This time he manages to get it open before she does so he can hold it for her. Not that she seems to notice. She just pushes through and gestures him in.

 

The room is nearly as big as his living room, with rows of battered white machines along two walls. Hill opens the door on the front of one of the machines. “Ok, put your clothes in there.” He peers inside. It looks like no washing machine he has ever seen. Where is the wringer?

 

“Just put them in and I’ll show you how to use it,” Hill says, so he obeys and she slams the door shut.

 

“Quarters go in here,” Hill says, pointing to a slot on the top. He doesn’t have any money, but she digs into a pocket and pulls out a handful of coins. “One dollar a load. You do it.” She drops the money into his palm and stands back, obviously waiting for him to pick out four quarters.

 

It costs a whole dollar for a load? Maybe he’ll just keep washing them out by hand. . .

 

“Go ahead. Four quarters. Put them in the slots,” Hill says in an overly-patient tone, like she’s talking to an idiot child again. So much for trying to impress her.

 

“I know how many quarters are in a dollar,” he says evenly, “it just seems like a lot of money.”

 

Hill rolls her eyes so hard he's almost worried they'll fall out of her head. “Believe me, you have plenty, ok? Just—here.” She grabs four quarters from his hand and sticks them in the slots on the top of the washer. “Like this, ok? It’s really not that hard.”

 

He takes a step back and folds his arms to hide the fact that his feelings are hurt. She doesn’t even seem to notice as she opens the top of the box she was carrying. “This is the soap,” she says quickly. “It goes in here.” She opens a little door and pours in some soap, far too much in his estimation. “Push the handle in and the washer will start.”

 

“Ok.”

 

“Ok, good. You do it.” 

 

He pushes in the little handle, the quarters disappear, and the machine starts to run, filling with water and swishing the clothes back and forth all by itself. 

 

“When it’s done, you can put it in a dryer.” She points to the line of machines on the other wall. Dryer? Apparently in the twenty-first century there are machines that you pay a dollar to dry your clothes, even though sunlight is free. “Ok? Got it?” How old does she think he is, anyway? Six? Or maybe ninety. Well, that may be true, but it doesn’t mean he’s stupid. But he can’t think of a way to defend himself without sounding, well, defensive.

 

“Ok,” he agrees, even though he is thinking that people who pay to dry their clothes are the stupid ones, not him.

 

“Ok, Good.” She stands back and just looks at him for a minute, like she wants to say something. Her eyebrows have that disapproving cant to them again, like in his drawing. He wishes she would just spit it out already, just call him an idiot and be done with it, so he at least knows where he stands. But she doesn’t. Instead she just shrugs and says “Ok. Come on,” and leads the way out the door back to his apartment while he trails her like a pathetic overgrown puppy. Sometimes he hates himself and his ridiculous need to please.

 

They go back upstairs to his apartment, where she launches into a rapid-fire explanation of all the appliances in the kitchen, starting with the stove.

 

“Turn on the burner here, see? Keep the temperature low so stuff doesn’t burn. These pans are pretty good so you only need a little bit of oil or butter to keep things from sticking. I can show you how to make scrambled eggs if you want. Those are pretty easy. Or like grilled cheese or something. Maybe one of those cans of soup—”

 

Steve feels like he’s going to explode. “I know how to cook,” he finally blurts out.

 

She stops and cocks her head at him. There is a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, the first he’s seen from her. “Oh. Ok.”

 

“Don’t patronize me. I can take care of myself.” As soon as he’s said it, his breath catches in his throat, because he knows he _can’t_ actually take care of himself, not here, not _now_. What if he has insulted her so much that she leaves and never comes back. What will he do then?

 

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to—Look, I don’t know what you know and what you don’t know, ok? So you just have to tell me. I didn’t mean to—I’m not trying to make you feel—Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ll try not to patronize you.”

 

He lets out the breath in relief. “Yeah, ok, that’s good. Thanks.”

 

“Yeah. Ok, well, I think you can figure out the stove then. Now the oven. . . um. . .” She taps the little window, and suddenly it lights up and the number 160* appears. “Ok, you set the temperature like this. . . um. . .” She taps the screen and the number now reads 180*. “So. . . maybe. . . 200 or something?”

 

Steve gives her a curious glance. “200 won’t do much.”

 

“Well, then, what’s. . . like. . . a temperature you’d bake something at?

 

She doesn’t know? Interesting. “I’d need 350 for raisin bread,” he says, “or 375 for french bread.”

 

“Oh. Ok. So just hit the up arrow until the temperature is what you want. And then. . . let’s see. . . .”

 

Steve can see that one of the buttons on the screen says ‘Preheat’, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed it. “Maybe push preheat,” he suggests.

 

She looks relieved. “Oh, yeah, probably. I guess I really. . . well, I have no idea about that. Ok, so that’s the oven. Now this is the microwave.” She points to the small metal and plastic box on the counter, the thing he thought might be a breadbox. “Have you used one of these before?”

 

“Um. No, Ma’am.” He is pretty sure microwaves are a type of radiation, but he has no idea how they might be used in a kitchen.

 

“It’s like an oven. Just put the food in here and set the time.” She taps a button on the front and numbers appear on the screen. “One minute is usually enough to reheat a plate of food or a drink.” She punches the button that says “One minute” and the device starts to hum.

 

“It can heat up a plate of food in one minute?” he says incredulously.

 

“Oh, right, I forget how crazy that might sound if you’ve never used one before. Welcome to the woooorrld of tomorrow.” She pushes the button that says “cancel” and the microwave goes silent again.

 

“I guess so.” He’s still examining the microwave, but she has already moved on to the dishwasher.

 

“We talked about the dishwasher the other day, right? It’s easy to use. Just load up the dishes, and when it gets full, put soap in here and lock the door, then press start. It will do the rest.”

 

“Um, ok.” He’s kind of wishing he hadn’t told her he could take care of himself, because now she’s going much too fast. Of course, he doubts he’ll use the dishwasher anyway, because it’s not hard to wash up a couple of dishes by hand.

 

“Let’s see, what else?” She starts moving away from the sink area, to pause by the refrigerator. “Oh, the fridge has ice and water in the door.” She gestures vaguely toward the refrigerator. He blinks at it. What does that mean? He’s about to ask, but she keeps going out of the kitchen into the living room. He hurries to follow, wishing he had kept his little notebook to take notes on all of this because he’s pretty sure he won’t remember. And there’s no way he’s going to ask her slow down, because he knows what she’ll think of him then.

 

“Ok, now the TV. . . um. . .” She looks around the living room. “Where’s the remote?”

 

“Remote?”

 

“Oh, right. It’s about the same size as your phone and it’s got buttons on it.”

 

“I put all the stuff I didn’t know what to do with in a box,” he points helpfully at the box of random junk he had shoved under the coffee table.

 

Hill plops down on the couch and opens the box, starts pulling out various wires and cords, muttering a bunch of gibberish: “AV cable. . . S-video cable. . .speaker wire. . . What did you do, just pull everything out of all the boxes and mix it together?”

 

Yes, that’s exactly what he did. “Um. . No, ma’am. . ?”

 

“Here we go,” she says triumphantly, pulling out a small black device, and then another, and another. “This one’s for the TV, this one’s the cable box, DVD player, and. . . stereo. Huh.”

 

“What?”

 

“Well, none of this is hooked up and all of the pieces are mixed together.”

 

“Do you know how to fix it?” he says hopefully. 

 

“Yeah, but it will take a while.”

 

“I can help you.”

 

“I don’t have—“ She breaks off. He’s pretty sure she is about to tell him she has to go and he’ll have to figure it out for himself but finally she sighs and pulls her telephone from her pocket. “Ok, fine. Just a second.” She taps at the screen furiously for a minute, then shoves the telephone back into her pocket again.

 

Hill starts quickly pulling more pieces of the box and laying them out on the floor in some sort of system that he doesn’t understand. When he tries to help, she just takes the pieces of his hands impatiently and puts them into piles herself.

 

“Where’s the DVD player?”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“For movies. That one.” She points to one of the boxes that he had put in the corner, so he goes and fetches it and pulls out a black metal box, the one he thought might be a toaster. So it’s for movies? As in, he can play actual movies on it?

 

“For. . . movies?”

 

“Yeah, I brought you some. You can look them over while I set all this shit up.”

 

He can’t help but wince at her casual swearing. His ma would have washed his mouth out with soap for language like that. “I can help with that.”

 

“Honestly, it will be easier just to do it myself. Movies are in the bag by your chair.” She immediately sets to work, ignoring him, so he sits down in his chair and starts pulling out little flat, rectangular boxes from the bag. They look nothing like anything he would describe as a “movie”, but there are pictures and titles on the front, so the movie must be in there somehow. 

 

The title of the first movie reads “Die Hard” and there is a picture of a terrified-looking man holding a gun, with an exploding building in the background. That one looks pretty violent, and he thinks he’s probably had enough violence for one lifetime. He turns the box over and scans the description on the back. Why would someone make a movie about people being held hostage and murdered?

 

He figures out how to open the box by pulling the two sides apart, and inside is a flat silver disk, too small to be a phonograph record. He tries to pull it out of the box but it is stuck.

 

“Don’t put your fingers all over the disk,” Hill chides without looking up.

 

“Yes, Ma’am.” He closes the box and picks up the next one, which is called Terminator. Another picture of a man with an even bigger gun than the last one. He’s wearing sunglasses even though it’s night. With a grimace, Steve sets the box back down and looks at the next one. “Lethal Weapon” it says, and this time the picture is of _two_ angry-looking men with guns. Why do they all have to have guns? His ma would have a few things to say to these fellows, about how violence never solved any problems, not really.

 

He sets the movies aside and leans back in the chair to watch Agent Hill work. She has pieces of equipment and cables and little boxes and manuals laid out all over the floor. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, and a lock of hair has escaped her ponytail to fall across her cheek. Steve memorizes the scene so he can draw it later because she suddenly looks like a real person instead of a disapproving headmistress.

 

“What do you think of the movies?” she asks abruptly, and he gives a guilty start, even though she didn’t look at him so she hasn’t caught him staring.

 

“I suppose—I mean—They’re probably fine, I guess,” he sputters.

 

Now she turns her head to look at him, while reaching around the TV to attach something to the back. “What kind of movies do you like?”

 

“All kinds. I like movies.”

 

“What’s the last movie you saw?”

 

“Wizard of Oz,” he says promptly. Well, he saw half of it before he ended up in a fight in an alleyway, but the part he saw was amazing. “I saw it right before I enlisted. Not a lot of chances to watch movies when you’re sleeping in a tent in the army.”

 

“What else have you seen?”

 

“I saw Snow White. I wanted to see Pinocchio but I was sort of busy that year. And I was going to take Peggy to see Bambi, but. . .well, things kind of got in the way.”

 

Hill is openly staring at him now. “You like Disney movies?” she asks incredulously.

 

He shrugs. “Sure, I like all sorts of movies.” Probably shouldn’t tell her he had a whole sketchbook full of drawings of Snow White dancing around the dwarves’ cabin. _Where is it now?_ he wonders.

 

“You’ve got some catching up to do, then,” she says with a smirk. She holds out a grease-smudged hand for the movies, so he gives them to her, wondering what she will do with them because it certainly doesn’t look like she’s done. “Hmm. . . Maybe not these.” She sets aside the three boxes that he had in his hand and pulls the last one out of the bag. “I bet you’d like this one.”

 

The words are a little hard to read, but then he turns the box around and realizes it looks odd because the words read the same upside down. “The Princess Bride,” he says. That sounds promising.

 

Hill, who is leaning adjusting something under the TV, flashes him a grin, a real one, and then blows the lock of hair out of her face. “One of my favorites.” 

 

The hair falls back down over her face, so she pushes it out of the way with the back of her hand, leaving behind a smear of gray. He opens his mouth to point it out, but what comes out instead is “Want to watch it with me?”

 

The grin fades. “Sorry, can’t. I gotta go.”

 

“Oh.” He swallows the disappointment that washes over him. “I understand.”

 

“I’m sorry.” She tosses leftover pieces of equipment back into the box, then sets the four ‘remotes’ on the table, all lined up side by side. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning at seven, ok? I’ll teach you how to use your phone.”

 

“Yeah, ok,” he says, still looking at the neat row of remotes. He has no idea which one is which, or how to use them.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

“Yes, Ma’am, I’m fine. Go ahead and go. I’m sure you’ve got important meetings to go to.”

 

There is a short pause before she says, “. . . Right. See you tomorrow.”

 

Hill gathers up her stuff, which isn’t much, and heads out the door. By the time he looks up to say goodbye, the door is already closing behind her and it’s too late. Nice work, Rogers. No wonder the ladies always turn around and walk the other way when they see him coming.

 

* * *

 

June 30, 2012

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Progress report, day 4

 

Introduced our boy to electronics. I think I blew his mind. Also, who the fuck decided he only needed two sets of clothes? He’s been washing them out by hand, for fuck’s sake. AND. If he “Yes Ma’am”s me one more time, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: re: Progress report, day 4

 

I’m sure he’ll adjust. As for the clothes, he’s welcome to buy more.

 

N.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

Are you kidding? We can’t turn him loose to go clothes shopping by himself. He’ll never make it home again.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

I suppose you’ll be adding to your curriculum then. I’m allocating you one extra day.

 

N.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Cc: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

That sounds like a job Phil would be dying to do. C’mon, please?? You know I hate to shop. You cannot send me clothes shopping with him. I don’t think either of us would survive it.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Agent P. Coulson

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Cc: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

I would be delighted to take S. clothes shopping. I know the perfect store that sells vintage clothing from the thirties to fifties. They have flat caps, fedoras, classic toe-cap oxfords, wide-shouldered suit jackets, high-waisted trousers, suspenders, and so much more. He’ll feel right at home!

 

P.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Agent P. Coulson

Cc: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

See, I knew Phil would be perfect for this job!

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Director N. Fury

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Cc: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

I don’t think dressing him like a 1930’s gangster is the right way to help him fit into this century. Hill, I gave this job to you. Stop trying to get out of it. End of story. Looking forward to your next report.

 

N.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

FUCK YOU!

 

M.

 

-0-

 

_This message has not been sent yet. Are you sure you want to delete it?_

 

 **Yes**     No

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Progress report, day 4

 

Noted.

 

M. 

 

* * *

 

From: Agent P. Coulson

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: files for SR

Attachments: Stark,H.pdf; Stark,T.pdf; Carter.pdf; Dugan.pdf; Morita.pdf; Jones.pdf; three-1930s-spring-outfits.jpg; 1944-sears-teen-jomphers.jpg

 

I’m attaching some files I put together for S. regarding his friends and colleagues. If he has further questions, I’d be happy to meet with him.

 

Also attached are reference photos for styles from the 1930’s and 40’s. I’m sure you can help him find something suitable. Good luck!

 

P.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: files for SR

 

Just no on the jodhpurs and knee breeches, Phil. We’re not dressing Little Lord Fauntleroy here. And why are all the waistbands up under the armpits? Nuh-uh, I ain’t sending him out dressed like that. Today’s men will eat him alive. Probably the women too.

 

M.

 

Oh, and I don’t always look angry, do I? I smile sometimes, right?

 

* * *

 

From: Agent P. Coulson

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: files for SR

 

You have a very nice smile, Maria. I always like to see it whenever you choose to show it.

 

Regards,

Phil

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in seeing the outfits Phil has in mind for Steve, just google the file names he attached to the email. They really exist, and they are *adorable*.


	9. Unit 4: Independent Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Hill forgot an important detail about the microwave.

Steve trudges down to the laundry room and takes his clothes out of the washing machine. He thinks he will have to wring them out by hand, but all of the water has already been squeezed out somehow. He can’t bring himself to pay a whole dollar to dry them when they will dry soon enough just hanging up in his apartment, so he hauls them back upstairs and drapes the towels over the shower bar and backs of chairs. The clothes he carefully smoothes out and hangs on hangers in the bathroom like he always does.

 

Aaaand that took all of thirty minutes. He has at least eight hours left until bedtime. How is he going to fill it? 

 

Oh! He knows how to operate the oven now, and he has ingredients, so he can cook! He makes himself a chicken pot pie for lunch, with a flaky _real-butter_ crust, and bits of chicken that are somehow already miraculously removed from the bone, and chunks of parsnips, and turnips, and potatoes, and onions, and even carrots. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

 

It comes out of the oven golden brown, with a smell that transports him back to his childhood and dinners at Bucky’s house, which were great as long as Bucky’s old man wasn’t home (most of the time anyway). It tastes delicious, but it’s too much for one meal, even with his enhanced appetite, so he covers the rest with a tea towel and puts it in the fridge. 

 

As he’s closing the fridge, he notices a little alcove in an opening in the door. When he presses a button above the alcove, perfectly uniform pieces of ice spit out onto the floor. Oops. But—wow. Maybe the 21st century isn’t so bad if things like that are possible.

 

Next he decides to start some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The yeast is different, but he figures it out by looking at the package. As he’s kneading the dough, he thinks he is finally nailing this twenty-first century thing. Maybe he’ll even watch a movie next, in his own fancy movie player. He could get used to this.

 

When the dough is ready and put aside to rise, he gets himself some ice, in a glass this time, and figures out how to add the water, then sits down in his chair and looks at the row of remotes on the coffee table. Which one is for the TV?

 

No idea.

 

He picks up one of the remotes and presses a button, and suddenly a radio comes on full blast. Steve starts punching buttons but can’t figure out how to turn the volume down.

 

“A suicide bomber carried out an attack on a passenger bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, today, causing the deaths of 42 people, including 31 Israeli youths on a school trip. Sources claim that Hezbollah is behind the bombing.”

 

_What?_ Just _. . . what?_

 

“This latest attack comes on the heels of a bombing on June 28 in Baghdad which killed 59 people, and another the previous week in Diwaniyah, Iraq, in which a powerful truck bomb exploded near a Shi'ite mosque, killing at least 26 and injuring 75 others. Now on to sports news—”

 

Finally Steve’s fumbling fingers hit the right combination of buttons to turn off the radio, leaving him to sit gaping in silence. Three attacks within two weeks that caused the deaths of over a hundred people, and they are so commonplace that the announcer segues directly into sports without missing a beat? 

 

This world is more messed up than he has been led to believe.

 

Numbly he keeps trying to figure out which of the remotes will turn on the tv, but has no luck. Lights flash on the fronts of various devices, but no sound comes out of the tv and the screen stays frustratingly blank. Finally he gives up. Watching a movie right now seems pointless anyway, and besides, he’s hungry again and there’s leftover pot pie in the fridge.

 

He goes into the kitchen on autopilot and opens the fridge, blinking in surprise when the light inside flickers on. The pot pie is cold, of course. What was he expecting? He could heat it up in the oven, but that would take a long time, and his stomach is insisting he feed it, preferably right now, or even better, five minutes ago. Damn supersoldier metabolism! He hates being hungry all the time, hates that lightheaded feeling that comes when he doesn’t stuff enough calories down his gullet fast enough. Sometimes he misses the days when he could skip breakfast and lunch without feeling like he was going to faint. Well, at least not feeling faint more than he usually did.

 

Oh, didn’t Agent Hill say he could heat up a plateful of food in just one minute in that gamma ray—(microwave? Yeah, that’s the right kind of radiation)—thing? That would be faster.

 

He pulls open the door of the microwave, carefully sets the pie tin inside, and closes the door. Then he does like Hill showed him and pushes the “one minute” button. There’s a short delay, during which he holds his breath anxiously, before the light comes on and the pie tin starts to rotate inside the oven. Whew.

 

He leans back against the counter and watches the plate go around, and it’s kind of mesmerizing. The twenty-first century may be going to hell in a handbasket, but you can heat up food in one minute so it can’t be all tha—

 

_Mortar fire machine gun bucky get down! explosion bucky bucky! grab my hand no no no_

 

_Can’t breathe hang on freezing wind whips tears from his eyes bucky bucky_ **_bucky_ ** _the plane impacts the ice with a bang. . ._

 

Steve comes back to himself crouched in the corner of the kitchen with his arm over his head. He can still hear the popping and banging noises that set off his flashback, but when he pulls his arm down far enough, he can see flashes of light coming from the microwave. Shoot! Somehow he has managed to set the damn thing on fire!

 

With his arm still in front of his face, he edges close enough to yank the plug out of the wall and the noise stops. The microwave is filled with gray smoke, and when he opens the door, the smoke billows out and surrounds him with an acrid stench like a soldering gun. He pulls his shirt up to cover his nose while he reaches in and tries to pull out the pie tin, burning his hand in the process. 

 

Coughing and choking, he sits down on the floor right there in the middle of the kitchen and jams his hand into his mouth. It hurts just enough to push him over the edge.

 

_He coulda burned down his apartment with the stupid microwave._

 

_He can’t cross the street._

 

_He doesn’t know how to swipe a debit card (he’s still not even sure what swipe means)._

 

_Forty-two people got blown up by a bomb today (including 31 KIDS), and nobody gives a damn._

 

_No one even knows he’s alive, and what’s worse, no one cares. He was missing for SEVENTY YEARS and no one even looked for him._

 

_Bucky is gone Peggy is gone the building he grew up in is gone his whole world is gone and he’s all alone in this confusing, horrible place. Bucky is gone bucky is gone_ ** _bucky is GONE_** _._  

 

The tears that have been threatening for the past week crowd their way to the surface and overflow down his face in an unstoppable flood. 

 

He’s sitting on the floor of the kitchen bawling like a child and he _hates_ himself for it.

 

While he is sobbing uncontrollably, he suddenly hears music. What is that? He wipes at his face with one hand, sniffling hard, while he digs in his pocket with the other and comes up with his telephone. The screen says

 

**Incoming call from**

**Agent M. Hill**

 

**Swipe to answer**

**—— >**

 

He taps the window but nothing happens, so he brushes his thumb across the screen in the direction of the arrow, and the music stops. Cautiously he holds the telephone up to his ear and says “Hello?” in a voice that cracks upward, much to his embarrassment.

 

“Hey, Steve,” Hills says, “I forgot to tell you something about the microwave. You can’t—“

 

“—Put metal in it,” he interrupts. “Yeah, I figured it out.” 

 

There is a pause, then Hill says in a small voice, “Oh, no. Is the building still standing?”

 

This pulls from him an unexpected watery chuckle. “It’s ok. I stopped it as soon as I saw the sparks.”

 

“Good. Are you. . . ok?”

 

He sniffs quietly and drags the back of his hand across his nose. “Yes, I’m ok.”

 

“Really? Because you sound a little. . .”

 

“I’m ok, really.”

 

“Hmm. Ok, well, I’ll see you in the morning then.”

 

“All right, thanks.” He isn’t sure how to ring off, but when he pulls away the telephone to look at it, it says 

 

**Call disconnected**

 

So she has hung up already. He supposes that’s good. He managed to hide the fact that he is a complete falling-apart mess from Agent Hill, who always looks so pulled together and perfect. He bets she never almost sets the microwave on fire and goes to pieces on the kitchen floor.

 

_All right, Rogers, get up, get the hell up and get on with life_ , he tells himself sternly. _So everyone else you love is dead, but you’re still here, so there must be a reason for that. Wallowing in misery won’t solve anything, won’t bring anyone back. You need to put your stupid feelings aside and just soldier on._

 

He pulls himself up and runs water over his burned hand until it stops throbbing. It is still bright red and there are blisters along the webbing between his thumb and first finger, but they are already starting to shrink, so it’s healing already, which is good. Unfortunately he is still hungry and his dinner is ruined.

 

With a sigh, he grabs a raw carrot from the fridge and chomps on it while he surveys the damage to the pot pie. The crust is a blackened mess, but the innards are still cold, so he grabs a fork and eats it straight from the pie tin, even though it tastes weird and the texture is rubbery.

 

By the time he is finished eating what he can salvage, the cinnamon roll dough is finished rising. After throwing the rest of the pot pie into the trash, he tosses flour over the counter just like his ma used to and starts rolling out the dough. He can’t help but see his younger self while he works.

 

_He is sitting cross-legged on top of the worn butcher-block counter with his sketchpad and pencil, while his mother hobbles around their kitchen with a blood-spotted handkerchief pressed to her mouth, trying to teach him how to cook. She won’t say it, but he knows it’s because she realizes she won’t be around much longer._

 

_“Pay attention, Stevie, this is important.”_

 

_“Yes, ma,” he says without looking up from his sketchpad._

 

_“Hold the rolling pin like this, baby. Press down evenly. . . Are you listening?”_

 

_“Yes, ma,” he repeats, but he’s not really because he’s too busy sketching her, watching the shape of her and how she moves, trying to memorize every part of her before she’s gone. He thinks that’s more important than knowing how to make cinnamon rolls._

 

These memories are bittersweet, but at least he has them. And he’s glad he finally did put down the sketchpad long enough to learn how to roll out dough, because it’s soothing, something familiar and repetitive to take his mind off the mess his life has become.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Effects of metal in the microwave exaggerated for dramatic effect. Just roll with it.)


	10. Cell phones and the Internet and Rule 34 (Oh my!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve discovers that searching on Google images is dangerous. Oh, and he also discovers that Agent Hill has been telling tales out of school.

 

Learning targets: The student will. . .

 

—Make more cinnamon rolls. Make all the cinnamon rolls. Oh god, such delicious cinnamon rolls.

—Stop calling a cell phone a “Telephone”.

—Learn how to use the phone, camera, and search apps

—Send a text message

—Oh my god learn how to type already!

—Ok, fine, learn voice-to-text. It’s easier anyway.

—Find information on the internet. For example, the phone number for Raymour and Flanigan

—Learn what the hell the internet is.

—Stop gaping. It’s unbecoming.

—Learn how to avoid accidentally visiting porn sites

—Stop choking and turning such adorable shades of red

—Learn how to clear the internet browser history

—Not be such a complete dork at the library. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.

—Ok, fine, be a dork. Be an adorable, embarrassing dork. That smile is worth it.

 

* * *

 

(July 1, 2012)

 

The next morning, he is up early to put the cinnamon rolls in the oven and cut up weird fruits. He irons his shirt and pants while they bake, until the apartment is filled with such a delicious smell that he has to stop and go to the kitchen just to breathe it in. While he’s there he grabs an apple out of the basket on the counter to tide him over because he’s STARVING.

 

He hears a knock on the door just as he’s pulling the pan of cinnamon rolls out of the oven, so he goes to answer it with one dishtowel still wrapped around his hand and another under his arm. He thinks it’s awfully polite of her to knock when she could obviously just come on in like she did yesterday.

 

“Hey,” she says breezily, holding out a couple of bags to him on her way in the door. He quickly tosses the dishtowels over his shoulder so he can take them. “Brought you some sh—stuff I thought you might like.”

 

“Really?” He peeks in one bag and discovers a sketchpad, which he eagerly pulls out. Underneath are several pencils, an eraser, and even a pack of colored pencils! “Thanks,” he chokes out in surprise.

 

“No prob. Look in the other bag too.”

 

He tucks the sketchpad under his arm and digs in the other bag to find a file folder, and a clear plastic box containing a watch with a round, white face and big black numbers. He looks up to find her grinning cheekily at him.

 

“Now you’ll always know what time it is,” she says. “No more excuses.”

 

“Ok, thank you.” Even though he knows she meant it as a joke, he’s surprised at the thoughtfulness of the gift. He can’t help but smile at the idea of having a real sketchpad and pencils.  “What’s in the file folder?”

 

“Info about your friends.”

 

His smile abruptly falls. His friends. His friends are _gone_ , and even if they are still alive, they won’t be the same. Nothing is the same. Why did he even want this information anyway? Why did he want to torture himself by confirming how they had all moved on without him?

 

When he looks up to see if Hill has noticed his distress, she is frowning at him. “Hold still.” She leans in and brushes her thumb against his cheek. “Is that powdered sugar?” she asks, inspecting her thumb then popping it into her mouth.

 

Embarrassed, he tries to subtly wipe away the bit of powder left behind on his cheek, but she obviously hasn’t noticed because she is already pushing past him toward the kitchen, wide-eyed. “What is that amazing smell?!”

 

Quickly Steve sets the file folder and other items down on the coffee table, and follows her into the kitchen while trying to rearrange his face into a more upbeat expression. He doesn’t want her to tease him about his puppy-dog eyes again, but it’s hard when he doesn’t even know what they look like. 

 

“Cinnamon rolls,” he says as he moves past her to get out the plates.

 

“Where did you get them? Did you buy them at the mini-market?”

 

“No, I made them.” He sets the plates on the table and pulls out knives and forks.

 

“Made them?” she demands. “The refrigerated kind? I didn’t see you buy those.”

 

“No, we bought the ingredients,” he says while he sets out the silverware.

 

“Wait. You MADE made these? Like, from scratch?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

Her wide-eyed look of awe is sort of unnerving. He ducks his head shyly and keeps moving around the kitchen, taking out the orange juice he squeezed and the bowl of unfamiliar fruits he sliced up this morning, while she continues to stare at him in obvious shock.

 

“I told you I could cook,” he says, almost defensively, without making eye contact. He folds up a dishtowel and uses it as a pad under the pan of cinnamon rolls on the table. He can see out of the corner of his eye that she is still staring at him while he dishes up a hot, gooey roll for each of them and slathers on the powdered sugar icing.

 

“You can sit down,” he says, and she drops bonelessly into a chair, gaping at the cinnamon roll like she’s never seen one before. Well, maybe she hasn’t. How would he know?

 

He sits down too, and starts pouring orange juice.

 

“I don’t remember buying orange juice,” she says without taking her eyes off the cinnamon roll. Is she drooling?

 

“We bought oranges,” he reminds her. Yes, she’s definitely drooling.

 

“You—you made fresh-squeezed orange juice?”

 

“Yes,” he says hesitantly. Is there some other way to get orange juice? Maybe they have big machines that make it out of fancy chemicals now. He has no idea. “You can eat it now. I think it’s probably cool enough.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, just picks up the cinnamon roll, ignoring the knife and fork, and takes a small bite. Her eyes slide closed while she chews slowly. He watches with growing anxiety. Maybe they’re horrible. They looked like they had risen all right, but he was really just guessing about the yeast.

 

“Oh. my. god.”

 

“Do you like them?”

 

“Oh my god. Marry me.”

 

“What?!” Instantly the tips of his ears get hot and he knows they must be bright red. Why can’t his hair be longer to hide them? Surely it must have been longer when they dug him out of the ice, right? Did someone give him a haircut while he was unconscious? And why has he never wondered about that before?

 

“These are aMAzing.” She takes another bite, then another, all the while making soft moaning noises that almost sound indecent. “I’ve never tasted cinnamon rolls like this. So good!” Another bite, then she repeats, “I can’t believe you made these from scratch!” He’s a little annoyed by it because he did tell her he could cook, but at least she’s not talking about marriage anymore so that’s good.

 

Her cinnamon roll has almost disappeared before he even takes a bite of his, then she gulps down her orange juice and takes another roll. He shakes his head and starts on his before she can eat them all. 

 

When she has finished the second roll, she starts piling pieces of the odd fruits on her plate. “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t eaten any of these. Did you try them yesterday?”

 

“No, ma’am.” He doesn’t tell her he was saving them for her. That might come off as a little sappy.

 

“Ok, tasting party!” she exclaims with apparently genuine enthusiasm. “Try this one first.” She holds out a piece of the fuzzy green fruit that has a bird name (Osprey? Emu?).

 

He takes it and inspects it closely. The fur looks. . . furry. Not really like food, but she seems to think it’s edible, and it was sold in the produce section of the store, so it _must_ be food.

 

Finally he puts the piece in his mouth and just tastes it for a moment. It’s. . . not bad. A little slimy, but the flavor is pretty good. He chews it up, and finds the fur and seeds get stuck in his teeth.

 

“What do you think of the kiwi?” Hill asks eagerly.

 

Right, kiwi, not emu. “Um. Not bad.”

 

“Next time cut the peel off. Helps with the texture.” 

 

Oh, right, he remembers now that she said she usually cut the fur off. “Ok, I will.”

 

“Here, try cantaloupe next.” She hold out a piece of something pale orange. He remembers the large fruit it came from was full of slimy seeds that he didn’t know what to do with. He finally ended up mixing them in with the fruit, but he sees that she has picked them out and set them aside, so that was obviously wrong.

 

He takes the fruit and sniffs it before popping it into his mouth. This one is. . . disgusting. Yes, that’s the only word for it. It’s all he can do not to spit it out. He looks up to discover Hill smirking at him.

 

“Don’t like that one, huh?”

 

“Not really, sorry.”

 

“You don’t have to apologize to me. I hate cantaloupe.” She picks the rest of the pale orange pieces out of the fruit bowl and sets them aside with the seeds. “Try pineapple.” She is holding out a piece of pulpy yellow fruit on her fork, and he’s not sure what to do. Does she want him to eat it right off the fork?

 

He settles for pulling it off the fork with his fingers and inspects it. He hadn’t been sure what to do with the greenish rind, but she has cut it off. It smells good, so he takes a careful bite, wary now after the cantaloupe. 

 

Pineapple is amazing! He decides it’s probably the best thing he’s ever tasted. Well, maybe not as good as peanut butter (which he never even got to taste until after the serum because of his allergies), but definitely up there in the top ten.

 

“Better?” Hill asks with an amused twinkle in her eye.

 

“Wow, that’s really. . . good!”

 

“Just good?”

 

“Great. Amazing. Delicious. Yeah, all those.”

 

This gets an honest-to-God laugh from her, which makes him smile. It’s nice to be able to make her laugh, because he wasn’t sure it was possible.

 

They keep trying different fruits. He likes:

 

Mango

Nectarine (exactly like a peach but no fuzz? Perfection)

Dragonfruit

Guava

 

He doesn’t like:

 

Starfruit

Papaya (slimy and disgusting!)

Passionfruit

 

Hill doesn’t like parsnips or turnips. She would have starved to death in his neighborhood in the 1930s.

 

When they finish with the tasting party, Hill takes another cinnamon roll and devours it without even putting it on her plate, then licks each of her fingers with her eyes closed and an expression of pure bliss on her face. With her last finger in her mouth, she finally opens her eyes and notices he is watching her.

 

“Um. . . yeah,” she says with a sheepish grin. “Do you mind if I take a couple of those cinnamon rolls home with me? I have a colleague who would love one.”

 

“Sure, no problem.”

 

She pries two more cinnamon rolls free from the pan and wraps them up in foil, then tucks the package into her backpack. “ Ok, let me just wash my hands and we’ll get started. I hope you charged your phone.”

 

He doesn’t know what that means. While she is washing her hands, she turns her head and obviously notices his quizzical expression because her mouth twists. “You didn’t charge your phone, did you?”

 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I don’t know. I mean. I’m not sure. Um.”

 

She snorts. “Ok, it’s probably still got some juice left because I don’t think you’ve used it much, right?”

 

“No, Ma’am, just to call you.”

 

“Go get your phone and charger and we’ll get started then.”

 

“. . . Charger?”

 

“That cord.”

 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I don’t think there was a cord. You just gave me the telephone.”

 

“Really?” Her voice is skeptical. “Let me see.”

 

“Ok.” He obediently trots to his bedroom and fetches the telephone from the nightstand, but there is no cord that he can find. When he pushes the button, the window doesn’t light up. How much is he going to be spending on batteries if they die that fast? And how do batteries fit in something small anyway?

 

He takes the telephone out and hands it to her. “Sorry, it’s not coming on.”

 

“Battery’s dead, which is why you should be charging it,” she says. “Where’s the box it came in?”

 

“Oh. I put it in with the cords and stuff.” He digs through the box of random junk he didn’t know what to do with and comes up with the little black box. He hasn’t even opened it, so he has no idea if it holds a charger, which as far as he knows is something to put under a fancy plate. Bucky’s ma had a set that she used for holiday dinners. Bucky always groaned when his ma told him to set them out because he knew it meant they would be washing twice as many dishes.

 

Hill takes the little box and opens it, and pulls out a black cord attached to a small silver box with a plug on it. This she plugs into the wall next to the table, then beckons him over.

 

“See here?” she says, pointing to a small slot on the bottom of the telephone. “Plug the charger in here. You do it.” She hands it to him, and he pushes the tab on the end of the charger into the slot. The phone rewards him with a soft beep, and a picture of a battery appears in the window. 

 

“Ok, we’re in business,” Hill says briskly. Steve stifles a sigh of relief because at least it’s not broken. He misses having equipment that he knows how to fix. He can take apart and put back together an SCR-536 handie-talkie, but he has no idea what to do if there’s a problem with the telephone.

 

While she fiddles with the phone, he stacks and clears the dishes, then takes the washrag and wipes off the table. She drags her chair around so they are sitting side by side and sets his telephone on the table in front of him.

 

“Ok, time to learn how to use the phone,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Go ahead and unlock it.”

 

“I already know how, ma’am. I used it to call you, remember?” After he says it, he realizes that maybe reminding her of that isn’t such a good idea. He quickly unlocks the phone so she knows he’s not trying to get out of the lesson.

 

“That’s good, but there’s a lot more it can do.”

 

He also knows it can track him, but he’s not going to mention that. “Like what?”

 

“Well, first off, there’s a camera.”

 

“There is? A telephone can take pictures?”

 

“It’s a smart phone, or cell phone, not a ‘telephone’, and yeah, it can take pictures. See? Just push the icon that looks like a camera.” She points to a little picture of a camera, and when he taps it, the window goes dark. He has a sudden lurch of anxiety that maybe he broke it.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Here.” Hill picks up the phone and holds it horizontally, and suddenly he’s looking at a view of his mother’s chair by the window. His eyes go wide.

 

“See? Just tap here and it will take a picture.”

 

He’s too busy staring at the miniature living room on the window. He can see everything: the file folder laying crookedly on the coffee table with the sketchpad and pencils stacked on top, the pile of library books on the side table, the corner of the sofa, the sunlight coming in the window, Hill’s backpack abandoned by the door. How does it do that?!

 

“Go ahead, tap it,” Hill says with a note of amusement in her voice. She’s laughing at him again. Great.

 

He carefully taps where she indicated, the phone makes a noise like a shutter clicking, and the picture freezes and disappears.

 

“Ok, now look at this.” Hill taps the corner of the screen, and the photo appears in the window, a frozen image of his living room in living color, sharper and clearer than any photograph he has ever seen.

 

“Wow,” he breathes.

 

“Ok, now take a picture of me,” Hill says, tapping the screen again and pushing the phone into his hands. He fumbles with it a minute before getting it oriented properly. He has been told he has a photographic memory, but he has never held an actual camera before.

 

“Ready?”

 

“Yep.” She smiles for the camera, a genuine, friendly smile, and it is _gorgeous_. He stares at the window, mesmerized. It’s a wonder anyone draws anymore, if they have cameras that can do that. “Go ahead,” she prompts him through clenched teeth. Her smile has faltered a little. He quickly taps the icon to take the picture before the smile can disappear, but he’s too late. It has lost some of its luster, and in the resulting photograph, she looks awkward and frozen.

 

“Let me see,” she says, reaching for the telephone, so he reluctantly hands it over. “Ugh. No.” She taps the bottom of the window, and the picture disappears. Then she holds up the phone facing toward herself, smiles and taps the screen, but the smile is different this time, not so genuine and easy as before. 

 

“Selfie,” she says with an almost embarrassed expression, showing him the picture. It’s nice, but he wishes he had been quicker in capturing the real joy he had caught a glimpse of earlier. “You try it.”

 

“Ok.” He holds up the telephone the same way she did, and now his own face is reflected in the window like a mirror. He blinks at himself. His eyes. . . have they always looked so sad? His eyebrows are pulled down at the outside, and there is a pucker between them. No wonder she called them “Puppy dog eyes”. He tries to smile like Hill did, but his eyes don’t change no matter how much he tries. Finally he taps the button anyway and takes his own picture. He wants to erase it immediately just like she did, but it won’t change the truth that is written all over his face.

 

Hill pulls the telephone out of his hand and pushes the button at the bottom. The little pictures (icons, she called them, as if they are religious relics) reappear in the window. “Let’s see. I think I’ll show you the map app next. You’re gonna need it if you don’t want to get lost all the time.”

 

Yes, not getting lost is a good idea. Unfortunately his photographic memory doesn’t extend to street signs and directions, although he can usually get around using landmarks that are seared into his brain. _Could_ get around, that is, since all of his familiar landmarks are long gone (He can feel the little pucker between his eyebrows, now that he knows it’s there, but he can’t get it to smooth out).

 

“Ok, tap the map icon,” Hill says, pointing it out, so he does, and suddenly he’s looking at a map of his street. “Now scroll south and you’ll find Brooklyn.”

 

Scroll? How exactly? And which direction? Terms like south and north don’t mean a whole lot to him, but he’s reluctant to admit that to Agent Hill.

 

“Go ahead,” Hill prompts, pointing at the screen.

 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I’m not sure. . .” He trails off, thinking the next words out of her mouth will be to call him an idiot.

 

“Oh, sorry,” Hill says with a look of chagrin. “Scroll like this.” She slides her finger up the window, and like magic, the map moves upward. He tries it, moving in the same direction, and suddenly recognizes the name of a street, Olive Street! And there’s St. Nicholas’ church, where he would sit with Bucky in the last row, trying not to fall asleep during Mass.

 

“Recognize that?” Hill asks, and he nods enthusiastically.

 

“I went to Mass there with Bucky.”

 

“You can zoom in if you want a streetview.” Again her words make no sense, but she clarifies before he has worked up the courage to ask. “Like this.” She puts her finger and thumb on the screen and spreads them apart, and suddenly the view enlarges and changes to what looks like a real picture of the church, which looks almost exactly the same as he remembers it. He gapes at it wordlessly, lost in memories. _The carnival on the church lawn where he accidentally ate crackerjacks and broke out in hives. . . Playing stickball in the parking lot and Bucky breaking a window. . . Trimming the hedges to help pay for the window because he refused to let Bucky take the rap alone._

 

“Well, anyway, we’ll practice with the map more tomorrow,” Hill says abruptly, tapping the home button. The church and street disappear and he doesn’t know how to get them back. “I need to show you how to text.”

 

“Text?”

 

“Yeah, like this. Open the messages app. It looks like a speech bubble.”

 

“Umm. . . Ok.” He taps the speech bubble, and what looks like a tiny little typewriter appears in the window. How is he supposed to type on keys that small?! He can barely type on a regular typewriter.

 

“Start typing my name and it will pop up.”

 

“. . . okay,” He starts to type, very slowly and carefully. The letters appear in a little box above the typewriter as he types.

 

**A . . . f**

 

No, that’s not right, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

 

Hill reaches over his shoulder and taps on the little X. The **f** disappears. He tries again.

 

**A. . . g. . .w**

 

Shoot! He tries to tap the X, but gets the **l** instead. Now it says

 

**Agwl**

 

He bites his lip and tries again, this time managing to hit the X, but the next hit is the **m** , so now it says 

 

**Agwm**

 

He bites his lip harder and tries again, this time hitting the X until the **wm** disappear. He keeps typing, even though he can feel Hill’s impatient eyes boring a hole in the top of his head. His ears are burning like they’re on fire.

 

**Ag. . . e. . . m**

 

“Goddammit!” he mutters in frustration, and then instantly remembers he is in the presence of a lady. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I mean darn it.” He glances up to see that Hill’s face is a contradictory mixture of annoyance and amusement. Oh, God, he hopes she doesn't start laughing at him, or he might throw the phone across the room.

 

“Sorry. They didn’t teach us boys how to type in school,” he mumbles.

 

He hits the X again, erases the **m** , and tries again, this time hitting the **n**. Suddenly Agent Hill’s name appears below the box, much to his relief.

 

“Just tap my name and it will put it in the address box.”

 

He does so, and a new box appears. “There, I did it,” he says, trying to hand the telephone to her, but she pushes it back to him.

 

“No, no, that was just the address box. Now you need to type the text.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Like this.” She takes out her own telephone, taps the screen a few times, and suddenly his phone makes a dinging noise. Words appear in the window.

 

_This is a text. Now send me one._

 

He glances up at her, bemused. Ok, he can do that, even though he doesn’t understand why he would want to. _Maybe_ he can do that. Tucking his tongue between his teeth, he starts trying to type.

 

**T**. . . **g** (no, delete that). . . **h**. . . **o** (shoot! Delete). . . **i**. . . **s**. . . **space**. . . **o** (Argh! Delete). . . **i**. . .

 

“Maybe I should teach you how to do voice to text,” Hill interrupts his efforts in a dry voice.

 

“Huh? What’s that?”

 

“See the thing that looks like an old-fashioned microphone? Tap that.”

 

He does so, and a little squiggly line appears at the bottom of the screen. He looks up at Hill quizzically. “What do I do now?”

 

The words **What do I do now** appear in the box. He blinks at them in surprise.

 

“It can understand me?”

 

Those words also appear in the box, so now it reads **What do I do now it can understand me**. 

 

“How do I get it to stop?”

 

**What do I do now it can understand me how do I get it to stop**

 

Hill laughs. “Tap the microphone again.”

 

**What do I do now it can understand me how do I get it to stop tap the microphone again**

 

He taps the microphone and the squiggly line disappears, thankfully. Typing on the tiny typewriter is difficult, but he’s not sure the microphone is any better.

 

“Now hit send.”

 

“I don’t want to send you that nonsense,” he protests, but she waves him off.

 

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just to try it out. It’s not like I don’t already know what it says.”

 

“Ok, fine.” He taps the send, and the phone makes a buzzing sound. The words turn blue and pop up in the window above the box, then Hill’s phone dings.

 

She turns her phone around to show him the words have appeared on her screen. “See?”

 

“Ok, that’s interesting, but is it for people who are deaf or something?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, why couldn’t we just talk to each other?”

 

She pulls a face. “Ugh, talking on the phone? No thanks. I’d rather text anyday.”

 

“But if we’re in the same room—“

 

“This doesn’t just work when we’re sitting in the same room,” she clarifies. “You can text someone on the other side of the world.”

 

“You can??”

 

“Yep. Watch this.” She taps her phone, then says into it, “Hey Tony where are you question mark.”

 

She shows him the screen where it says 

 

**Hey Tony where are you?**

 

“Tony? As in, Tony Stark, Howard’s son?”

 

“Yep.” 

 

A few seconds later, her phone dings and words appear on the screen.

 

_Budapest. You?_

 

“You just got a message from Budapest? As in Hungary?” Steve asks incredulously. The last time he was in Budapest was during the siege and it had been mostly flattened. He supposes it must be better now, right?

 

“Yep.” She says into the phone, “Greenpoint” and shows him the screen.

 

**Greenpoint**

 

“Wow. That’s. . . sort of like magic.”

 

“No, it’s science,” Hill says matter-of-factly. “No big deal.”

 

Her phone dings again, and he catches a glimpse of the screen before she turns it away.

 

_Fun! Are you going to take him to the park to play? Maybe put a backpack leash. . ._

 

Hill makes a little squeaking sound and yanks the phone back, but the damage is already done. He knows that a) she has been complaining to Howard Stark’s son about having to babysit Steve, and b) she was joking with him about Steve getting lost. So much for Operation Get Agent Hill to Like Me. 

 

Jaw clenched and throat tight, Steve picks up the pile of plates and goes to the sink to start washing up. 

 

“Oh shit,” Hill mutters. He just ignores her while he starts the water in the sink. He could leave, he thinks while the sink fills. Fury doesn’t own him. He has money. He could get a motorcycle and just take off. _Get a motorcycle how exactly?_ the Bucky-voice in his head chides him. _You don’t have a license and you can’t even use a debit card_. Not to mention he doesn't know where he’s going or how to access his money and they can track his phone so he can’t actually get away from them anyway unless he leaves it behind.

 

“Steve. . .” Hill says from behind him. He doesn’t turn, just squirts in the soap and starts washing dishes. Her chair scrapes as she gets up, then he hears her footsteps clicking across the hard kitchen floor toward him. “Steve, I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t bother,” he grinds out through gritted teeth. “You can go, you know. I don’t need babysitting.”

 

She appears at his elbow. He reaches around her to stack a plate on the towel to dry. “Steve. . .”

 

He keeps washing dishes, hoping she’ll go away, but she doesn’t. “Steve, look at me.”

 

He doesn’t want to, because if he does, she’ll see how much she hurt him. He knows the pain is written all over his face. He can feel it in his puckered eyebrows, in his burning eyes, and his clenched jaw, and in the lump in his throat and his hunched shoulders.

 

Hill sighs. “Ok, fine, don’t look, but at least listen. I did feel that way, but really, I’ve gotten over it and I’m sorry. And Tony—he just says stuff like that. He doesn’t have any mouth-brain filter. He doesn’t mean it, or at least he wouldn’t if he ever met you.”

 

Steve keeps his gaze trained on the plate he’s scrubbing, but he watches Hill out of the corner of his eye. She is chewing her lip. She seems sincere. And really, she’s his only lifeline in this unfamiliar and often hostile century. What is he going to do without her?

 

He swallows hard and says, “Ok,” without looking up. It’s the best he can muster, so he hopes she’ll accept it.

 

“Ok? Yeah, good. Will you come back and sit down so we can finish our work?”

 

Steve is done washing up the dishes now, so he has no excuse left. He shrugs and dries his hands on the way back to the table. He’s determined to master this, determined not to need babysitting, although he hears an echo of Bucky’s voice in his head: _I gotta follow ya around all the time to keep ya outta trouble, punk?_ At the time, Steve chafed at Bucky’s nanny-ing. Now he would give anything to have it back.

 

He sits back down at the table and she hands him his phone. Hers she drops into her pocket, in case Tony Stark sends her another disparaging message, he supposes. Probably for the best. Steve doesn’t want to hate the guy before he even meets him.

 

“Ok, let’s check out the internet,” Hill says with forced cheerfulness. “Hit the icon that looks like a rainbow G. That’s googol.”

 

As far as he knows, googol means ten to the hundredth power, but that doesn’t make sense in this context, so he doesn’t say anything. He finds the G and taps it, and the screen goes to white, with the word “Google” (not googol) in the middle and a little box below it. The typewriter appears again. Oh, no, not more typing!

 

“Google is a search engine.” Hill may as well be speaking Greek.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

“I mean, you can use it to search for anything you want to know.”

 

He still doesn’t understand what she’s talking about, and his face must show it, because she laughs and clarifies further. “Think of it like. . . a library card catalog containing every piece of information on Earth.”

 

He can feel his eyebrows climb. “Everything?”

 

She shrugs. “Pretty much. What would you like to know?”

 

_Everything_. So many things he can’t possibly narrow it down to just one. 

 

When he doesn’t say anything, Hill continues “How about. . . Stark tower?”

 

“Ok,” he agrees. Tony may not have made much of a first impression, but Steve is still curious about Howard’s son.

 

“Good. Here.” She pulls his hand with the phone toward her mouth and says “Ok Google.” The phone beeps and funny rainbow lines appear on the screen. “Stark tower Manhattan.”

 

It beeps again, a woman’s voice says “Searching,” and suddenly the funny lines are replaced with words and pictures, of one of the tall towers he had noticed on his way into New York (was it only four days ago? It feels like a lifetime). 

 

“All that information is in the phone?” he asks in awe.

 

“No, not on the phone; it’s on the internet. It’s like the world’s biggest library. This is Stark Tower.”

 

He squints at the little pictures. Hill taps one and it gets bigger, fills the whole window with gleaming chrome and glass. “And watch this. Ok Google. . . Ironman.”

 

The picture disappears and is replaced by pictures of what looks like an automaton in red and gold. It looks like. . .

 

“Is it flying?!”

 

“He—that’s Tony—and yes, he can fly.” She slides her finger up the screen and more pictures appear. She touches one of the pictures, this one with a little triangle in the middle, and it fills up the window. Then she turns the phone sideways, taps the triangle, and it starts to move, like a film reel but there’s no film reel. Ironman zooms across the screen with a trail of bright yellow light, to delighted shouts from people watching on the ground.

 

Steve whistles in amazement. “Wow, that’s. . . impressive.”

 

Hill flashes a grin. “I’m sure he’d be happy to know you think that,” she says, and then hurriedly reassures him, “Don’t worry, I’m going to tell him.”

 

Steve’s not sure Tony Stark would care about his opinion, but who knows? He wants Hill to show him more, maybe what Tony looks like—does he favor his old man?—but she has already cleared the screen and moved on to something else.

 

“Here’s the number for Raymour and Flanigan,” she says, tapping the screen.

 

“Why would I want that?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, in case you decide to get the chair in the color you actually wanted.”

 

“I told you it’s fine. Red is fine.”

 

“But you wanted blue.”

 

“I don’t care,” he says in his most convincing tone, because there’s no way he’s going to call them and complain, but she still looks skeptical.

 

“All right, all right. Anyway, you can find it again if you want it. Now, what else do you want to know?”

 

He could look up anything. The wide open possibilities are overwhelming, so he decides to play it safe and settle for something familiar. “How about the Howling Commandos?”

 

“You do it. Remember how to start?”

 

“Yes.” He holds the phone up and says “Ok Google. Howling Commandos.”

 

The phone beeps obligingly, the woman’s voice says “Searching”, then pictures appear on the screen. The first few are photos he recognizes—himself and the Commandos in the field. Bucky and Gabe laughing together. Dum Dum with that ridiculous hat that he never took off, even to sleep. Peggy Carter and Jacques in a jeep. Then he spots the fourth photo and his heart practically stops. The picture shows himself, Morita, and Dum Dum practically naked, engaged in what could be described as an orgy. Some long pink arms that look like octopus tentacles are wrapped around them all.

 

“What the hell?!” His face is on fire and his hands aren’t working right. He doesn’t want Hill to see that picture. Even though he’s sure it’s not real, Hill won’t know that. How does he get rid of it?!

 

“Oh!” Hill grabs the phone from his hand and hits the home button. “I may have forgotten to warn you about something.”

 

“I swear, ma’am, that NEVER happened!” he chokes out.

 

“Don’t worry, I know. Somebody photoshopped it. I should have warned you about Rule 34.”

 

“What—what does that mean?”

 

“If it exists, there is porn of it.” She taps the screen with her thumb a few times, then hands the phone back to him. The offending picture is gone. “I turned on safesearch. I can’t guarantee it will catch everything, but it will help.”

 

“But how did they get a picture of something that never happened?!” he cries, distressed.

 

“Photoshop. Image manipulation. They probably put your faces on someone else’s bodies. Everyone knows it’s not real.”

 

“But—but _why_?”

 

Hill shrugs. “Rule 34. That’s just the internet for you. I told you, everything is on there, good and bad. You just have to be your own filter. What would you like to look up next?”

 

“I think I’m done,” he says, putting the phone in his pocket. He doesn’t want to accidentally stumble into something like that again, especially not with a lady watching. The internet suddenly seems less like an amazing opportunity to learn about the modern world and more like a pit of vipers. One wrong move and you’re scarred for life. It makes him feel self-conscious and vulnerable, knowing that people out there are getting their jollies from naked pictures altered to look like him and his men. 

 

Now she is laughing at him. Well, not laughing out loud, but she’s definitely smirking. “Ok, fine, but at least let me show you how to clear the history. That way if something else shows up later, you can delete it.”

 

“Ok.” He hands her the phone and she hits an icon that says “Settings”. 

 

“See here? Just tap “Clear history” and it will erase the records of any websites you’ve been to.”

 

“Can we do that now?”

 

The smirk is back. “Sure.” She taps the words and a message pops up that says “history cleared.”

 

“You said records? Who has the record of. . . websites? . . . I go to?”

 

“Just on the phone. Don’t worry, we won’t be tracking you. Search away. Really. As long as you’re not watching, I don’t know, snuff porn or something like that, it’s fine.”

 

“I’m not going to be looking at pornography,” he assures her.

 

“I wouldn’t care if you were. Honestly. It’s not a big deal.”

 

It may not be a big deal to her, but it is to him. He wasn’t raised that way. Bucky and some of the fellows had pictures of pinup girls taped to their lockers or tents, but never him. For one thing, Peggy woulda killed him. And for another, it was disrespectful of the other women he worked with, to treat them like objects only valued for their looks or their bodies when their minds were so brilliant.

 

Hill is watching him closely, lips pursed. “Are you ok?”

 

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just a little. . . weird is all. I don’t think I like that anyone can see pictures like that, even if it’s not really me.”

 

“Sorry. I wish I could do something about it, but that’s the internet. Free exchange of information, even if you don’t approve.”

 

“I’m not a. . . prude.”

 

She holds up her hands. “I don’t want to know! Time to change the subject. . . Um. . . Did you finish those books I gave you?”

 

“Oh. . . yeah, I’m done with them.”

 

“What did you think? Ender’s Game is my favorite.”

 

He chews his lip. “I didn’t exactly get that far.”

 

“You didn’t read them?” she says in a scandalized voice. “Why not?”

 

“They’re sort of. Well.”

 

“Sort of what?”

 

“Depressing.”

 

“Oh.” She goes into the living room, picks up the stack of books, and flips through them. Her lips twist. “Yeah, I guess I can see what you mean. Do you want some different books?”

 

“Sure, thanks.”

 

“You said you wanted to go to the library, right?” 

 

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he says hopefully.

 

Hill picks up her backpack and pulls her keys out of the front pocket. She heads for the door, so she must be ready to leave already, which means he’ll have the rest of the day to kill by himself. Plenty of time to fail to figure out how to use the movie player, and burn things in the microwave oven, and be too scared to cross the street, and—

 

“Well, come on then, let’s go to the library,” Hill says impatiently, making a little shooing motion.

 

“Right now?”

 

“Don’t you want to?”

 

Steve almost trips over his feet rushing to the door. “Well, yeah, but I thought you had to get back to work.” He shoves his feet into his shoes, not bothering to tie them in his hurry to get ready before she changes her mind.

 

“Eh, Fury can go fu—can just wait for a while. We gotta get you some better books. And then later after I leave, you can walk down to the mini-market and get over your irrational fear of debit cards.”

 

Oh. Debit cards. Great. 

 

Hill takes him through familiar territory on the way to the library, and he can’t help but point out a few places he recognizes. Most of his stories end with “and then I got beat up,” which makes Hill snort in amusement.

 

They end up at the Arlington branch, which is the same branch he and Bucky spent so much time in as kids. It looks almost exactly the same, even the _smell_ is the same. It’s like being transported back to his childhood. He grabs Hill by the arm and hauls her to the back tables where he sat and read books about medieval art while Bucky tried to pick up Lizzie Peterson. Except now there are little TVs on the tables with typewriters attached, and every chair is full.

 

“What books do you want?” Hill asks, steering him toward the fiction stacks.

 

“I don’t even know. Just something not so. . .”

 

“Depressing, I know,” Hill says. “Here, try Harry Potter.” She hands him a book with a picture of a boy riding a broomstick like a witch, which looks interesting.

 

“What’s it about?”

 

“Magic and shit.”

 

“Oh.” He flips it over and skims the back, but Hill is already moving on, so he tucks the book under his arm and scrambles to follow.

 

She pulls another book off the shelf and holds it out to him. “If you like that, you might like Lord of the Rings too.” Two more books follow the first. “It’s a trilogy,” she says matter-of-factly, and heads for the next shelf.

 

Steve stops dead in the aisle and stares at the author name on The Lord of the Rings. JRR Tolkien? “Hey, is this a sequel to the Hobbit?!” he asks, probably too loud for the library but he’s so excited he doesn’t notice that people are looking at him.

 

“I guess so. I haven’t read it since I was 12.”

 

“When was it written?”

 

“I have no idea. Did you read the Hobbit?”

 

“Yeah!” he says with a huge grin. “I read it in college when it first came out. I think I got it right here at this library.”

 

Hill has that funny little smile on her face again, the one he doesn’t quite know how to interpret. He thinks maybe she’s laughing at him. “And I take it you liked it.”

 

“I loved it so much I made Bucky let me read it out loud to him. He complained but I think he liked it because he never told me to stop.”

 

“What a good friend.” Hill has several more books in her hands, which she sets on the top of the stack he is already carrying. The top one says Charlotte’s Web and there is a picture of a pig and a little girl in dungarees on the cover. “All right, let’s get out of here. I gotta get back to work.”

 

He’s disappointed, but what did he think, Agent Hill was going to sit down and let him read The Hobbit sequel to her? Of course not. She has important work to do, and he. . . has to take a field trip to the mini-market. Oh boy. His life is so exciting he can hardly stand it.

 

* * *

 

July 1, 2012

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Oops

 

I accidentally introduced S. to porn. Thanks, Internet.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

From: Agent P. Coulson

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: oops

 

He was in the army. I think he’s seen porn before.

 

P.

 

* * *

 

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

To: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: Oops

 

Gay Hentai porn? Based on his reaction, I think that one was a new one for him. Poor S. I deflowered Captain America.

 

M.

 

p.s. I left you a little gift on your desk.

 

* * *

 

July 1, 2012

 

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Progress Report, day 5

 

Introduced S. to internet. May have opened a bit of a Pandora’s box with that one. Not sure he’s ready for that level of information about the 21st century. Puppy dog eyes at an all-time high. Gave him files on his friends, which I’m sure won’t help. Took him to the library and got him some nicer books to try to cheer him up a little. He still hasn’t gone to the mini-market or tried out his debit card. I give him a C- for homework.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: Progress Report, day 5

 

No need for letter grades, just tell me when he’s ready for active duty. I have an idea in mind for him.

 

N.

 

* * *

 

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: Progress Report, day 5

 

Cut the guy some slack. He’s still adjusting to this century, all his friends are dead, and by all rights he should be too. I think he’s earned a break.

 

-0-

 

_This message has not been sent yet. Are you sure you want to delete it?_

 

**yes** no

 

* * *

 

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: Progress Report, day 5

 

Noted.

 

M.

 

* * *

 

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Thanks! 

 

Delicious but gooey. My keyboard is sticky now.

 

* * *

 

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: Thanks!

 

Thank S. He made them. Dang, the boy can bake.

 

M.

 


	11. Unit 5: Independent practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns that the hard way that Google is not necessarily the most reliable source.

He’s going to walk down to that corner store for real this time. He’s going to cross the street and not get killed, and he’s going to use the goddamn debit card. He’s going to do all these things and he’s going to live to tell about them. This is what he tells himself as he threads his way through the crowded sidewalk, past the coffee shop that is advertising “Mocha—$3.95”. He’s had a mocha before, in Italy from a little old lady who melted the chocolate in a pan in the fire. It was velvety and delicious, but there’s no way in hell he would pay almost FOUR DOLLARS for one.

 

When he gets to the corner, he looks longingly across the street at the mini-market. The open sign in the window is bright green neon like Times’ Square, and other lit-up signs advertise beer and different brands of cigarettes. He can see a shelf that holds snacks, including some he recognizes (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! Oreo cookies! His stomach is grumbling just thinking of it). He doesn’t have to stand on tiptoes to count out pennies on the counter. He can get anything he wants, because his debit card is like a magic money machine. _How about that Bucky_ , he thinks, trying to work up the courage to cross that street. _I can get all the penny candy I want! I can even buy a peppermint stick or a jar of Oreo cookies!_

 

He looks left and sees no cars, looks right and sees no cars, looks back to the left and right again to check for bicycles or other pedestrians, and sees nothing. Heart pounding, he puts a foot out into the street, just as a bright yellow sports car comes careening around the corner. He jumps back to the safety of the curb just in time to avoid becoming a red, white, and blue smear on the pavement. 

 

Chewing his lip, he turns and walks down to the next block where there is a traffic light, crosses when it turns, and walks back a block to the mini-market. Maybe tomorrow he’ll cross the street, but for now he’ll focus on the next step: shopping by himself. Even though the store is small, there are still so many choices, half of which are a complete mystery to him.

 

He avoids everything that says “Flaming hot” or “jalapeno-flavored”, which mainly leaves sweets. He picks up a package of Twinkies, which look familiar although they don’t appear to be banana-filled like he remembers. Oreos are now packaged in plastic instead of a glass jar. He picks up a package of those as well, and a couple of candy bars that he recognizes the names of even though the packaging looks very different. While he is standing in the aisle with his hands full of snacks, he hears “excuse me” coming from his right. He looks that direction, and there stands the cute girl from the coffee shop, carrying a basket.

 

“Oh. Um. Sorry. Um,” he stammers. As he backs up to get out of her way, he runs into the shelves behind him, knocking off several bags of chips with his elbow. When he turns to try to catch them, he drops the package of Oreos. The girl scoops it up and holds it out to him, expressionless.

 

“Oh. Thanks. Um.” He shifts the other items trying to free up a hand to take the package. He can feel his cheeks heating up as he fumbles around, almost dropping a candy bar in the effort. After a few seconds, she just sets the Oreos on top of the disorganized pile in his arms, then squeezes past him without a word and heads toward the next aisle. Now he’s thoroughly embarrassed, and as long as she’s in the store, there’s no way he’s going to be able to pull himself together enough to figure out how to use the debit card.

 

As soon as she rounds the corner out of sight, he carefully and quietly returns all the items to their spots on the shelves and ducks out of the store. And then, of course, he finds himself back out on the crowded sidewalk with a busy street in front of him that he has to cross _again_. Car car truck car. . .(GO! Nope, motorcycle, jump back like a moron) car truck jeep car car. It never ends!

 

While he is standing there dithering and hoping for the road to miraculously clear so he can cross, the girl from the coffee shop comes out of the mini-market carrying a plastic bag. Without even stopping at the curb, she strolls across the street, threading her way easily through the traffic to the other side, where she pauses and glances back at him with a questioning look on her face. She’s definitely wondering why he’s standing there like an idiot when he obviously wants to cross, but he _can’t_. He just _can’t_. He ducks his head and backs up, then turns and heads down the sidewalk to the safety of the traffic light and striped crosswalk at the next block.

 

When he passes the coffee shop on the way back, the girl gives him a funny look through the window. He knows his ears are turning bright red, but he just keeps walking. What does he care what she thinks of him? He’s got a hot date with a book.

 

* * *

 

Steve stretches out in his mother’s chair, with a cup of tea and his hundred dollar (!!) blanket on his lap and starts reading The Fellowship of the Ring, which is indeed a sequel to The Hobbit. He finds it much more enjoyable than any of the books Hill had brought him, and he keeps reading without stopping until the end, by which time it’s nearly dark outside. He doesn’t even realize that he hasn’t eaten dinner until he finishes the last page, and his stomach suddenly informs him that it needs food RIGHT NOW or it’s going on strike, and taking the rest of his internal organs with it.

 

He fixes himself a ham sandwich and a big glass of milk, then after he takes a bite, he decides he needs to make bread because the loaf from the store is too soft and almost tasteless. While he eats the sandwich at his table, he looks around at the empty chairs and tries not to wish Bucky and Peggy were sitting in them. Hell, he’d even take Dum Dum at this point. 

 

To take his mind off the wave of loneliness, he gets out the ingredients and makes bread dough, then sets it in the window covered in a tea towel and methodically cleans up.

 

Well, now what? Desperate for something to do, he sinks back down in his chair and grabs the second book in the series. As he’s settling in, he notices his phone sitting on the little table beside the chair and realizes he could thank Agent Hill for taking him to the library. He wouldn’t even have to talk to her (and maybe interrupt another date); he could send her one of those text things.

 

He picks up the phone and hits the code to turn it on (0704—he still doesn’t know why she picked that number for him). Now how. . . oh, right, the little. . . icon. . . that looks like a talking bubble. When he taps it, the nonsense he texted her earlier pops up in the window, along with a typewriter and the little box to type in. Now he has to type—ugh. Or wait, he could do the talking thing!

 

He clears his throat and taps the little microphone. The phone beeps and a line appears at the bottom of the window.

 

“Agent Hill, thanks for the book recommendation. I really enjoyed it. From Steve.” he says.

 

He taps the window and hits the send button, and then reads what he sent her.

 

**Agent he’ll thanks for the book recommendation i reedy annoyed it I’m Steve**

 

Well, that’s not what he said! Now she’ll think he’s an idiot (even more than she already does, of course). He tries to tap on the X to make it go away, but it won’t erase. So he tries again, speaking more clearly this time.

 

“I meant Agent Hill. I really enjoyed the book. From Steve.”

 

The words pop up in the box, and this time he looks at it before he hits the send button. It says 

 

**I mint agent hill I really enjoyed the book from Steve**

 

That’s not right either, but he doesn’t know how to fix just the words that are wrong, so he erases the whole thing and laboriously pecks it out, one letter at a time. It takes nearly ten minutes before he finally has it like he wants it, and then after he hits send, he realizes he typed “Seve” instead of “Steve.” He hates this century so much, even though it does have nice things like new books by Tolkien and soft blankets and machines that wash your clothes and even wring them out for you.

 

His phone dings, and message from Hill pops up in the window.

 

_What did you read?_

 

He replies **Lord of the Rings** , checks it carefully, and hits send. Almost immediately her response comes through.

 

_All 3 of them?_

 

**No just the first one**

 

_Glad you liked it. :-)_

 

He squints at the funny punctuation at the end of her message. What does it mean? Did she type it by accident?

 

While he has his phone in his hand, he remembers about that library thing (Fishing net? The Network?) where he can look up anything he wants to know. Now that Hill isn’t looking over his shoulder, maybe he can find out more about this century without worrying about accidentally ending up somewhere inappropriate. And if he does, he can just erase the record, right? He’s not sure he believes her that no one else will know what he sees, but what choice does he have? There are certain things he doesn’t feel like he can just ask someone, at least not without sounding like a complete moron.

 

The first thing he wants to know is a question that has been bothering him ever since he skimmed the first books Hill gave him: was there a World War III, and if so, what happened in it? He hopes it isn’t real, because that would mean that Bucky’s sacrifice, and that of all the other good men and women who died, were in vain. Fury’s scant “briefings” that he left at the safe house didn’t mention anything about it, but he’s finding that they were woefully incomplete in most things. For instance, they never mentioned eyebrow piercings, cell phones, or FOUR DOLLAR coffee either.

 

With trepidation, he taps the rainbow G to open Google, then holds the phone up to his mouth. “Ok, Google,” he says, feeling a bit ridiculous even though his heart is pounding. “Please tell me about World War Three.”

 

The phone beeps, then the voice says “Searching”. A few seconds later the results show up in the window. The first one says 

 

**World War III (North Korea)**

**Wikia > future > wiki > World_War_III**

 

**World War III (often abbreviated to WWIII or WW3) also known as the Third World War, was a multi-national war that lasted from. . .**

 

His heart drops. So it _did_ happen? How many dead? When did it start and end? How could the entry just end there? Desperate to know more, he slides his finger up the screen like Hill did, and finds another entry. This one says

 

**World War III - Wikipedia**

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_III**

 

**World War III (WWIII or WW3) and Third World War are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and ...**

 

Hypothetical, which means it _didn’t_ really happen? Well, which one is right, and how does he know? He can’t quite breathe, a familiar sensation but not one he’s felt lately. Google is _lying_ to him. Libraries aren’t supposed to lie to you, but apparently in this century they do.

 

Thoroughly confused now, he taps the X to clear the box. He has so many questions, but now he’s not sure he’s going to get truthful answers. What’s his other choice then? Ask Agent Hill? So she can laugh at him?

 

With even more trepidation, he decides to ask Google another question to see if he can get a straight answer on something else he’s been wondering about: Freedom Tower that they saw on the way through the city. Hill curled her lip when she said the name, and he wonders why. Since she hasn’t brought it up again, she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, so Google is his only option to find out more.

 

“Ok, Google, please tell me about Freedom tower.”

 

The phone beeps obligingly, and the woman’s voice says “Searching,” then the results appear. He glances through and finds out it is the tallest building in the western hemisphere, almost 1800 feet tall (!!). Its address is One World Trade Center and construction was started on April 27, 2006. All interesting information, but nothing that would relate to Agent Hill’s sad expression.

 

One of the descriptions refers to “9/11 ground zero tours,” but there’s no further information other than they are offered at 10:30 a.m. and 2 pm daily, which doesn’t tell him much. He slides his finger up the screen, and finds a reference to “. . . the events of 9/11/2001.” What does that mean? The description trails off mid-sentence, like all of them seem to do, leaving him frustrated.

 

“Ok Google,” he says. “What happened on September 11, 2001?”

 

The phone beeps again, and again the voice says “Searching.” Then information starts to appear. The first one says

 

**FAQ about 9/11 | National September 11 Memorial & Museum**

**https://www.911memorial.org/faq-about-911**

 

**For 9/11 Families. A dedicated section for the loved ones of those killed in the 2001 and 1993 attacks. Stay informed and plan your visit. More Information » ...**

 

Attacks? What sort of attacks, and where? The next section has a picture of two tall towers, with a triangle in the middle of it. Oh, that’s a film reel! He remembers that Hill touched the triangle, and it played a movie. That doesn’t seem too hard. He taps the triangle, the picture expands to fill the whole window, and the movie starts.

 

_One of the towers is on fire_.

 

A huge airplane, the biggest one he’s ever seen, flies into the scene from the right and crashes into the second tower, which explodes into flames, sending up a huge cloud of black smoke.

 

Steve stops breathing but the film keeps going. The towers are burning and bits of flaming debris are flying everywhere and tiny specks that might be people are falling from the roof and people on the street are screaming and running and Steve can’t blink, can’t _breathe_ , can’t _move,_ can’t look away. Is this _real_? Could this really have happened?

 

With trembling fingers he taps the window again and the flames go still, the running people freeze in place. Steve doesn’t remember how to make the picture go away, so he hits the home button instead, taking him back to the window with all the cheerful little icons. That couldn’t be real, could it? If someone could alter a picture of him and his men so it looked like they were naked-wrestling with an octopus, they could alter the movie to fake an airplane running into a building, right? Maybe, but that certainly _seemed_ real. The faces of the running people were filled with very real-looking horror. He squeezes his eyes shut but he can still see their terrified expressions on the insides of his eyelids.

 

He can’t look at any more. He is afraid to even keep searching for fear he will uncover fresh horrors that may or may not be true. Dropping the phone on the side table, he gets up and finishes making the bread, then sets it aside to cool. It’s late, far past his bedtime, but he doesn’t think he can sleep, certainly not in that too soft bed. So he sits back down in his chair, where his eyes fall on the file folders and sketchpad stacked on the side table. He doesn’t think he can stomach reading about how all his friends died right now, and he doesn’t want to find out any more unpleasant surprises about the modern world, so he picks up the sketchpad and one of his new pencils. Art supplies are safer. Art supplies don’t fly into buildings and murder thousands of innocent people.

 

He starts by sketching Shauna, the woman on the street corner with all the hard angles. When he finishes, he notices even more than he did at the time her utter exhaustion, the weariness in every harsh plane. She looks very exposed, in her short skirt and sleeveless top, so he erases the angles of her upper body and redraws her with his jacket on. Better.

 

Flipping the page, he sketches Agent Hill as she looked while she was setting up the movie player, with a real grin crinkling her mouth and eyes and a lock of dark hair falling over her face and a smudge of gray across her cheek. He’s not quite satisfied with it, so he flips the page and starts again, this time drawing her the way she looked when he first turned the phone toward her, the photo that is preserved in his memory even though he was too slow to catch it with the camera.

 

By the time he gets to the eyebrows, his eyes won’t stay open any longer and the pencil falls out of his hands.

 

_He is on the plane again, but this time instead of going down in the arctic, it’s about to crash into a tall building. He sees terrified faces flash past the windows as the nose of the plane impacts glass and chrome and explodes into a million tiny pieces._


	12. Unit 6: Yeah, well, fashions are stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tastes some of that FOUR DOLLAR coffee and finds it better than he expected. He goes shopping and finds it worse than he expected.

Unit 6: Yeah, well, fashions are stupid

Learning targets: Student will

—Comb his hair. Just seriously. It’s unfair to look that cute with your hair sticking up.

—Be appreciative for coffee, as it is the very nectar of the gods.

—Bake more bread for the instructor. Maybe a sourdough loaf next time? Or OH! cinnamon raisin! Yeah, that would be great, thanks.

—Learn how to identify a reliable source (on his own, since that’s outside the scope and sequence of this course)

—Oh, GOD, just cross the goddamn street already!

—Choose a pair of pants without having a complete panic attack over prices.

—Defend himself from unwanted advances.

—Never mind, the instructor will do the defending. Student will observe and take notes for next time.

—Not break the instructor’s heart from sads.

 

* * *

 

 

_Ratatatat machine gun fire and bucky watch out watch out! and bucky is falling and terrified faces in the windows and the plane is going down and. . ._

 

Steve wakes with a start to find himself still slumped in the chair, with drool on his face and a crick in his neck and the sketchpad open on his lap. The sun is streaming in the windows so it’s morning, which means he spent the entire night in the chair.

 

The ratatatat starts up again, causing him to jump in panic until he realizes it’s Agent Hill coming to pick him up already, and he’s still dressed in yesterday’s clothes with a line of drool down his chin. She’s going to be mad, and the longer he makes her wait, the madder she’s going to get, so he quickly flips the sketchpad shut, untangles himself from the blanket and stumbles to the door, wiping the moisture from his chin as he goes.

 

Hill looks him up and down as she strides in the door with her hands full. When her gaze gets to his head, her lip quirks up just for a second, then she quickly turns away. “Go comb your goddamn hair,” she growls on the way past him. He reaches up and pats the top of his head where he can feel his hair sticking up.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, wishing he could just disappear. She’d be happier without having to babysit him, obviously. He’d better move fast so she can get this over with and get on with her life, which is definitely more exciting than his at the moment.

 

He goes into the bathroom, grabs the comb and wets it down. As he reaches up to comb his hair, he sees his face in the mirror and has to stop and just breathe for a second. His skin is very pale except for his eyes, which are bloodshot and have dark smudges under them. And his eyebrows—the vertical lines between his eyebrows seem to have doubled overnight. He presses on the spot to smooth them down, but they just pucker right back up again. Shaking his head, he quickly runs the comb through his hair, brushes his teeth, and hurries out of the bathroom, where he finds Hill in the kitchen taking a huge bite out of the last cinnamon roll. Her eyes widen and she freezes mid-bite.

 

“‘Orry,” she mumbles through a mouthful, “I ‘ought you’d be ‘onger.” Then she swallows hard and tries again. “Sorry, I thought you’d be longer. Did you have any breakfast?”

 

“No, ma’am, not yet.”

 

“Want this?” She holds out what’s left of the cinnamon roll, which is just over half, but he shakes his head.

 

“No, thanks. You go ahead. I’ll have some fruit and toast.”

 

“Ok.” She takes another huge bite, chews and swallows. “Oh, I brought you a coffee. Wasn’t sure what kind you liked, so I got you a mocha.” She holds out a paper cup with Blue Bottle Coffee written on the side in blue. So she got this at the coffee shop down the street? He hopes she didn’t pay FOUR DOLLARS for it, because if she did he’ll have to revise his opinion of her intelligence.

 

When he doesn’t take it, she shakes the cup a little and says, “Go ahead. It’s chocolate. Try it.”

 

He takes a cautious sip and finds it’s sweet and delicious, almost as perfect as the one he had in Italy. Still not FOUR DOLLARS good, but definitely drinkable. Maybe he'd pay a dollar for coffee like that, but certainly not four. That's just ridiculous. “Thank you, it tastes fine,” he says sincerely, and he doesn’t even ask how much she paid for it, because his Ma raised him right, even if hers didn’t.

 

She shakes her head and mutters, “Tastes fine? It’s fucking amazing,” as she opens his fridge without asking permission and starts pulling out leftover fruit. He takes another sip of the coffee, because if she bought it with a pint of her blood, he shouldn’t waste it, right? And it really isn’t half bad. Just the right amount of sweetness. He takes another sip and sets the cup down within reach, then takes the towel off the bread he baked yesterday and slices himself off a couple of pieces.

 

Suddenly Hill is next to his elbow. When he pulls back to give her room, she takes the pieces of bread he sliced, puts them on a plate, and starts slathering them with butter. So. . . apparently those are hers now. He can’t help the little smile of amusement that tugs up the corner of his mouth as he cuts two more pieces for himself.

 

Hill takes a bite of bread, then says with her mouth full, “You ‘ade this, right?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“I’m gonna need some of this to take back to headquarters. I know someone who will really appreciate this.”

 

“Ok.” He cuts off about half the loaf and wraps it up in foil for her, and she takes it, with her second piece of bread hanging from her mouth, and puts it in her backpack, along with the rest of cantaloupe. “Ok,” she says, swallowing a bite, “we’re going clothes shopping today.”

 

His heart sinks. He had really hoped she would forget. “I told you, I really don’t need any more clothes.” _Don’t make me shop for clothes don’t make me shop for clothes. . ._

 

“Yeah? Then why are you still wearing yesterday’s clothes?”

 

He looks down at himself. “I just woke up.”

 

“You wore those to sleep in?”

 

“Well, I sort of fell asleep in the chair while. . .” _drawing_ “. . . reading.”

 

“Uh huh. So normally you wear pajamas?”

 

“No, I don’t have any pajamas.” He says defensively. “I don’t need pajamas.”

 

“Do you have a clean outfit to wear today?”

 

“These are still clean.”

 

She puts her hands on her hips and fixes him with the disapproving eyebrows. “Come on, Steve, give me a break. Fury told me to take you clothes shopping, so that’s what I’m going to do, even if you don’t want to. Otherwise you’ll have to rely on me or, even worse, Phil, to pick your clothes. Trust me, you don’t want that.” Is that a hint of panic in her voice?

 

“All right, fine,” he relents.

 

Her relief is almost comical. “Good. That’s better. Yeah. So do you know what size you wear?”

 

“Oh. Um,” he stammers, “I have no idea. Used to be a 28 short in pants, but I don’t think those would fit me anymore. In the Army somebody made the clothes and gave them to me. They never made me go shopping.”

 

She takes a deep breath and lets it out through her nose slowly. “Well, this is going to be fun then,” she says in a hard voice.

 

“Someone must know, right? I mean, these clothes fit. Who bought these? Maybe they can—”

 

“Those clothes don’t fit.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The shirt’s too big, and the pants are too short but the waist is loose. You didn’t notice?”

 

No.” He examines his clothes with a frown. “I used to have this great leather jacket that fit perfectly. First nice jacket I ever owned. Peggy picked it for me. . . I have no idea what happened to it.”

 

Now it’s her turn to stammer. “Yeah. . . um. . . I think that jacket’s in the Smithsonian now.”

 

“It is?!”

 

“Yeah. Sorry. I guess you’ve got no choice but to go shopping.” She picks up her backpack with an impish grin. “Sucks to be you.”

 

“Yes it does,” he says, more truthfully than he is willing to admit. He picks up the coffee, because it’s still hot and so he might as well take it with him. On his way past Hill, he takes the backpack from her hand and hefts it onto his own shoulder, and this time she lets him. At least something is going right for him today.

 

* * *

 

In the car he has time to drink his coffee (which is really quite good, maybe even _better_ than the one he had in Italy. Maybe it's worth about two dollars) and think, because Hill is concentrating on weaving around and through traffic, giving other drivers the finger while muttering curse words under her breath, and basically ignoring him. His thoughts of course drift back to the things Google showed him last night and how he’s not sure if he can trust her (—it? Is Google a person? He doesn’t know).

 

“If you keep making that face it’s gonna freeze that way.” Hill’s voice yanks him back to the present.

 

“Huh? Sorry, Ma’am?”

 

“What are you thinking about? You look like someone shot your dog.”

 

He tries in vain to relax his eyebrows. Still not working. Can he ask her? Maybe not. She already thinks he’s an idiot, he’d rather not remove any remaining doubts in her mind. He’s silent too long, because she shrugs and focuses back on the traffic, namely how to get around the row of cars stopped in front of them.

 

“Um, Agent Hill?” he says, just as she swings the nose of the car out into the oncoming lanes to pass a slow-moving truck.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“World War three—was it. . . real or not?”

 

“What??” She turns to focus on him for a second, eyebrows pulled together, but the expression quickly drops and she turns back to the road with a snort. “You’ve been googling.”

 

“Well, yeah. You taught me how, but one of those. . . um. . . things—?“

 

“Websites?” she suggests in a gently teasing tone.

 

“Yeah, websites, well, one said it was real and one said it was hypothetical, so which is it?”

 

“We need to have a talk about reliable sources.”

 

“How would I know if it’s reliable?”

 

“That’s a really good question, one that a lot of people who grew up in this century can’t figure out. I don’t really have time to explain it to you, but maybe. . . maybe one of my colleagues can put something together for you.”

“Ok.” He waits, chewing on the inside of his cheek, but she doesn’t seem inclined to say more, and she still hasn’t answered his question. Maybe she’s not telling him because she thinks he can’t handle it. Maybe millions of people died and a giant bomb destroyed half the earth. He takes a gulp of his coffee while watching her out of the corner of his eye, then another, but she just stares at the road and says nothing further. Finally, after over three minutes have passed, he has to ask again.

 

“So which is it?”

 

“Which is what?” She jerks the wheel to the left and screeches around a double-parked car.

 

“Real or not?” The inside of his cheek is bleeding now; he can taste the tang of iron sharp on his tongue.

 

“Oh! Fuck, I’m sorry; no, it’s not real. Well, not exactly. There hasn’t been a global conflict since World War Two, but there’ve been a lot of smaller conflicts, up to and including now.”

 

“So we’re at war?”

 

“Well, technically. It’s hard to explain. I’ll tell you later, ok? I’ll bring you a history textbook. You’re in there, by the way.”

 

He sits back in his seat. He hadn’t realized he was sitting forward so far, practically hunched over, until he leans back. She is concentrating on driving again, this time revving the engine and scaring a group of teenage boys who are crossing the street mid-block. He takes another drink of his coffee and decides maybe it’s worth about three dollars, but definitely not four. When he goes to take another drink, he gets a mouthful of sweet chocolate sludge instead. Oh, it’s all gone. Well, that’s disappointing. Maybe if it were bigger it would be worth four dollars.

 

He puts the cup in the cupholder, then cuts his gaze to Hill again because he has another question to ask her. He’s not sure how to say it, but he has to know if that film reel was altered, or if it really happened.

 

“Ma’am? What about September 11, 2001?”

 

“Shit,” she breathes. “You looked that up too?”

 

“Sort of. I saw a film reel of. . . an airplane, and it looked like there were people jumping—“

 

“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen it,” she interrupts, “way too many times. Sorry, I should have told you. Yeah, that one’s real.”

 

Steve stares out the windshield, trying to process someone intentionally flying a plane—not just one plane; at least two—into a building. He notices out of the corner of his eye that she is watching him with her lower lip tucked between her teeth.

 

“Are you traumatized?”

 

Steve decides to bluff. “Ma’am, I watched my best friend fall to his death, and then I crashed an airplane into the arctic and died. I think I can handle it,” he lies.

 

Luckily she believes him because her mouth curls upward into a half-grin/half-grimace. “That’s my boy.”

 

* * *

 

After Hill parks, Steve realizes they have to cross the street to get to the shop she wants to go to. She strolls across like it’s nothing, while he stands with his toes on the edge of the curb and swivels his head left and right, trying to magically will a break to appear in the traffic. It’s not working.

 

He looks across the street and sees her watching him with her arms folded and her eyebrows pulled down disapprovingly. He turns his head left, then right, then left again, sees no break, but suddenly Hill is right by his elbow again. She grabs a fistful of his shirtsleeve and says, “We are going to have to practice this.” Then she’s dragging him across the street, right in front of a car that barely misses them. A horn blares, startling him.

 

“Shit,” he swears under his breath, then follows up with an awkward “Sorry.”

 

“For what?” She keeps going with him in tow until they reach the far side of the street, somehow miraculously intact. He doesn’t know how she did it, but he doesn’t have time to look back because she is already heading toward the door and he needs to get there first so he can open it for her.

 

As he pulls open the door and steps back to usher her through, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but she's smiling so. . . maybe she likes it? He hopes so but he can’t really tell with her. Life was simpler when he knew what people expected. 

 

The first area just inside the entrance is a huge perfume department, with advertisements featuring more women who need to eat a cheeseburger already. They’re showing more ribs than he did before the serum, back when he was so sick that he could barely eat anything without throwing up. He wonders what modern women think, surrounded by such inaccurate and frankly unhealthy models all the time. Do advertisers these days really think that’s what human bodies are supposed to look like? 

 

Hill pulls him away from one ad by the arm, and drags him through the perfume section (where a very persistent woman tries to spray her with something cloyingly floral), past jewelry to the men’s section in the back. Hill stops at the first rack, which is filled with faded dungarees, some of which already have holes in them,  and starts rifling through them. He watches with growing anxiety. He thinks maybe this is the wrong store for him, because these clothes all look worn out and frankly ridiculous. 

 

She pulls out a pair of dungarees with worn spots on the thighs and knees, and holds them up to him to check the length. 

 

"Those dungarees have holes in them already," he points out, hoping she'll get the hint. 

 

She laughs. "Yes, yes they do." She puts them back on the rack and pulls out a different pair, darker blue with no holes. "How about these?”

 

“Yeah, those are better,” he says in relief. “But. . . are there any that aren’t work pants?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, dungarees are for manual labor, like digging ditches and stuff—“ She is giving him a skeptical look, so he quickly backtracks. “Not that I think I’m too good for that. I can do manual labor, it’s just—“

 

“First of all, they’re called jeans, not ‘ _dungarees_ ’,” Hill corrects him, “and second, everyone wears them, not just laborers. Haven’t you noticed?”

 

“Well, I guess I had noticed an awful lot of people wearing them, but I just thought. . . Well, anyway, are there any other kind of pants?”

 

Hill’s lip twists. “Oh, god, please tell me you don’t want jodhpurs.”

 

He is confused, because he’s sure he hasn’t seen anyone in jodhpurs. “Aren’t those for riding horses? Or does everyone wear those now too?”

 

“Oh, no. No one in their right mind wears jodhpurs.”

 

“Then why—“

 

“Never mind.” She tosses the jeans at him and he catches them over his arm while she heads for another rack that holds more familiar looking tan pants. “How about one pair of jeans and some khakis?”

 

“Sure, that’s fine.” He sneaks a peek at the price tag on the jeans. _Ninety-five dollars?!_ Maybe he can put them back without her noticing.

 

She starts looking through the khakis, then turns around to catch him moving toward the rack to put back the jeans. “Nuh-uh,” she says, pulling them out of his hand and tossing them over his arm again. “You have money and you need clothes. You have to at least try them on.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“Good.” She tosses a few pairs of khakis on top of the jeans and moves on to the next rack. He can’t help but check the price tags, surreptitiously so Hill doesn’t notice, and realizes that if he buys all of the pants currently on his arm, he will have spent almost five hundred dollars, which was nearly a _year’s_ rent on the first place he and Bucky shared. He can’t spend that much on pants. He just _can’t_.

 

“Which ones do you want?” Agent Hill says abruptly.

 

Steve looks up to see that she is holding up a fistful of belts. They all have fancy designs on them--one is engraved with skulls--and he can see a price tag hanging from one: $49.95. He almost chokes. Growing up, he only ever had two pairs of pants, both handed down from Bucky. His Ma taught him how to hem them, and patch the knees when he tore them up fighting, and then let the hem down when he grew, which wasn't often. He held them up with a rope tied around his waist. Once he got a job and a little money, one of his first purchases was a real leather belt, bought from the leathersmith shop on Bedford Avenue. There were only two choices, plain brown or plain black, and he couldn't decide which one he wanted, so Mr McCurdy chose the brown one for him, and cut an extra hole in it so it would fit around his skinny waist. That belt cost three dollars, almost a whole day’s wages. Now, he can't even get a cup of coffee for three dollars, and Agent Hill wants him to shell out almost $50 for a fancy belt that he doesn't even need anymore because he's no longer so skinny that his pants fall down. 

 

Hill is still glaring at him with those disapproving eyebrows, so he says "I don't need a belt, ma'am."

 

She mutters something that sounds like, "Of course you don’t," under her breath, tosses the plainest brown belt over the pile of pants on his arm, and puts the rest back. 

 

“Ok, shirts,” she says, moving on to the next rack. She pulls out several and puts them all back. “Too small in the shoulders, too big in the waist. May have to take you to a specialty shop for shirts. Hmm. . .” She keeps going, pulling out more shirts, holding them up to him with a critical expression, and putting them back. He follows her like a puppy holding the pile of pants that she wants him to try on. He hopes she doesn’t expect him to come out and model them all for her, because he would probably die of embarrassment.

 

A woman’s voice interrupts them as Hill is shoving the latest shirts back onto the rack. “Hello there!” 

 

Steve looks around the pile to see a saleswoman, with bright pink hair and a piercing through her eyebrow shaped like a fishhook, smiling at him. “I’m Ellie. Would you like some help?” she chirps.

 

Steve is about to answer, but Agent Hill turns around too with a relieved expression on her face and does it for him. “Yeah, he needs clothes, but he doesn’t know his sizes,” she says, as if that’s a personal moral failing.

 

He opens his mouth to defend himself, but the saleslady says, “They never do,” and takes ahold of his arm turns him around. “Hmm,” she says, putting her hands on both sides of his waist and running them down his hips. Steve feels his muscles tense with the contact. “Looks like a 32” waist, and probably a 36” inseam.” She pulls most of the pairs of pants off his arm and looks through them. “Not these, sweetie. Too short.”

 

She leads the way back to the racks of pants, which Steve had hoped they were done with, and puts back the khakis and jeans. Her lacquered fingernails (Why black? What happened to red?) flick through the hangers on the rack. “Here you go. Try these,” she says, pulling out a pair of dungarees with a big hole in the thigh. “They’ll work well with your. . . physique.”  The corner of her mouth pulls up into a smile that makes Steve’s neck flush. 

 

He tries to tell her he doesn’t want jeans with holes in them, but nothing will come out of his mouth. Hill takes the jeans puts them back on the rack. “He doesn’t want holes,” she says in a tight voice.

 

“Oh! Ok, I have some in a darker wash. How’s that, honey?” 

 

Steve thinks Hill will answer for him again, but she just looks at him. Oh, he’s allowed to speak? He chokes out, “Yes, Ma’am. That’s fine.”

 

The saleslady’s pierced eyebrows climb almost all the way up into her pink hair. “I’ve never been called ma’am before,” she says with amusement in her voice. Great, now she’s laughing at him along with flirting with him. “Oh, God, if I brought you home my mother would loooooove you.”

 

He swallows hard, not sure how to respond to such an open proposition. Hill grunts, yanks a couple more pairs of khakis off the next rack, and shoves them into his arms along with the darker jeans. “Go try these on,” she says, gesturing toward the fitting rooms. “I’ll keep looking for shirts. Maybe Ellie here can help me find some. Whaddaya think, Ellie? You got any shirts for his. . . _physique_?”

 

“We probably have something in the athletic wear department.”

 

“Great.”

 

“Do you want t-shirts or button-ups?”

 

Hill raises her eyebrows at him, obviously waiting for him to answer for himself, so he says, “Um. . . both.”

 

“Do you like button-down collars?” Ellie hooks her finger into the collar of his t-shirt as she says it, and he has to stop himself from flinching away.

 

“Button-downs are fine.” _Whatever it takes to get you to stop touching me._

 

“Ok, we’ll find you some wrinkle-free shirts.”

 

“Why?”

 

“So you don’t have to iron.”

 

“Oh, he doesn’t mind ironing,” Hill puts in. Why does she look annoyed? What’s so wrong with ironing?

 

“Oooh!” Ellie exclaims, squeezing his bicep, “is there anything about you that _isn’t_ perfect?”

 

Steve doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s had women flirt with him before, an unexpected side-effect of the serum, and he’s never known how to respond. It’s not polite to just say, “Leave me alone” to a lady, so he puts up with it and tries duck out gracefully, which never works but he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

Hill’s mouth is a straight, hard line now. “Go on, Steve. Pick a dressing room. We’ll be right back.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

 

He makes the mistake of looking back as he heads for the fitting rooms, to find Ellie is watching him walk away with a lascivious smile that ties his stomach in knots. 

 

“Come out and let me have a look at those jeans, _Steve_ ,” she calls back to him. “I’m sure they’ll look _fantastic_ on you.”

 

As soon as she turns away, he practically sprints into a dressing room and drops the pile of clothes onto the bench. He can’t do this. He can’t go out there and let that woman paw at him again, but he doesn’t know how to get her to stop. With men it’s easy—if a fellow is harassing you, just punch them in the face. Nice and straightforward, no mistaking your meaning. If a woman is harassing him, he just turns fifty shades of red and stammers and lets them touch him because what else is he supposed to do? 

 

He is still sitting on the bench next to the pile of clothes when he hears a knock on the door to the dressing room. “Steve?” comes the saleslady’s voice. “We brought you some shirts to try on.”

 

“. . . Ok.” _Go away go away goaway_.

 

“I’m going to put them over the door.” Those words are followed by several shirts being pushed over the door. Her hands appear and arrange the hangers so the shirts are hanging from the top of the door. “What did you think about those jeans?”

 

“Oh. Um. I haven’t tried them yet.”

 

“Well, go ahead then. Come on out when you’re done so I can check the fit.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says automatically, because the words _No way in hell_ won’t come out of his mouth. Why is he such an idiot? How did Bucky always stay so confident and in control with women hanging off both arms, while Steve turns into a gibbering mess if a woman looks at him crosswise?

 

She makes a little noise of approval, then her footsteps click away. Well, he’s told her yes, so he’d better try on the jeans already. Reluctantly he strips off his pants and pulls on the jeans. He can tell immediately that they are too tight. He can barely get them buttoned, and when he does, he can’t bend at the waist. 

 

“Ma’am?” he calls in a tentative voice.

 

The footsteps click back his way. “Yes, honey? What can I do for you?”

 

“I think I need the next size up. These don’t fit right.”

 

“Let’s see them.”

 

“I don’t think—“

 

“Just come out and let me check.”

 

“Yes, Ma’am.” He opens the door a crack and sees Ellie standing just outside with her hands on her hips. Agent Hill is further down the hall, kicked back on a bench with her ankles crossed and arms folded, a hard expression on her face. 

 

Ellie beckons him out. “Let’s have a look.” She takes him by the arm and turns him around, clearly ogling his backside. He feels her hand at his waist and can’t help his visceral flinch. She laughs, low and throaty. “Just checking the fit, sweetie. Hmm. . .” She runs her hand down his hip and outside of his thigh. His breath catches in his throat. _Stop stop stopstopstop_ he thinks, but nothing comes out because his throat is so tight.

 

“These are perfect,” she says breathily. Her hand slides up the inside of his leg and he finds himself squirming away like a child, with his face growing hot and sweat forming on his upper lip. Why doesn’t she get the hint? And _why_ can’t he tell her to just stop?

 

She has her hand on his thigh now, squeezing just a little. He’s pretty sure he’s going to throw up his breakfast if she doesn’t stop. He clears his throat anxiously and manages to choke out, “I think they’re too tight.”

 

Her hand slides again, over his hip and back up to his waist, where her thumb hooks into the waistband of the jeans. “Oh, no honey. You need to show off your assets.” Another breathy laugh, another squeeze, this one up under his shirt on his bare back. Steve, mortified, shoots a glance at Hill to see if she has noticed the saleslady’s roaming hands, and finds that she is glaring at him with her lips pressed tightly together. She’s angry at him again. He’s disappointed her somehow, but is it because he can’t pick clothes, or because he is letting the saleslady paw him like a piece of meat, and Hill thinks _he’s_ flirting with _her_? Pressure appears behind his eyes. _Don’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcry._ . .

 

Ellie’s gaze follows his, and then she says, “Besides, I bet your girlfriend likes you in tight jeans.”

 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve clarifies immediately, in a panic. If Hill thinks he is telling people she is his girlfriend, things won’t go well for him. Judging by Hill’s glare, it seems that things already aren’t going well for him. He doesn’t want to make it worse, but it seems almost inevitable.

 

Ellie’s thin eyebrow arches upward, and the fishhook piercing goes with it. “Oh no? No girlfriend then? How about a boyfriend?”

 

“What?! N-no!”

 

She laughs. “It’s ok if you’re bi,” she says in a conspiratorial tone. He has no idea what she’s talking about. Bi what? “I’m cool with that if you are.” Her hand slides down until it lands on his backside. He swallows hard and takes a step back, but she doesn’t let go. How is he supposed to get away from her? If he grabs her hand, he might accidentally hurt her. Running away doesn’t seem like the best plan, especially because these pants are too tight to allow for quick movement. If he ducks into the dressing room, the likelihood is high that she’ll follow him and then he’ll really be trapped.

 

Her hand gently squeezes his backside. She grins and leans in when he jumps. “We could have a good time. Bring a boyfriend,” she whispers. “It’ll be fun.”

 

“Ma’am—“ He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. if she moves another couple of inches, she’ll be kissing him, just like Private Lorraine did, and he was powerless to stop her either. God, what is _wrong_ with him? He outweighs this woman by at least fifty pounds. He could just shove her away from him without much effort, but instead he’s on the verge of tears.

 

He hears a click of heels moving fast toward him, and suddenly Hill is between them, pushing the saleslady back without even laying a hand on her.

 

“I think we’re done here,” she says in a firm voice. Without breaking eye contact with Ellie, she barks over her shoulder to Steve, “Get your clothes on and let’s go.”

 

“Yes, m’am,” he responds immediately, squeezing past them into the dressing room, where he fumbles for the lock with trembling fingers. Hill is furious with him. Operation Get Agent Hill to Like Me has failed miserably. 

 

He glares at his face in the mirror, at the stupid puppy-dog eyes that he can’t fix, at the uncontrollable wrinkle in his chin. _Pull yourself together, Rogers!_ he lectures himself silently. _Nobody wants to see you boohooing over clothes shopping. Don’t be such a goddamned baby! You’re wasting Agent Hill’s time._

 

The self-lecture only makes things worse. Now he feels guilty for feeling sad and powerless. He strips off the jeans and pulls his pants back on, then sits on the bench and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. God, he wants to go _home_.

 

_Home_.

 

He has no home. The apartment is just a storage place for his shell, filled with things he didn’t pick and empty of anyone who cares about him. Well, then, if no one cares about him in this horrible, god-forsaken century, then he’s just going to have to live with that fact. He’ll be damned if he’ll cry in front of Agent Hill about it like a toddler.

 

There is a quiet knock on the door. “Steve?” comes Agent Hill’s voice.

 

“Yes, ma’am?” 

 

“I scared her off. You can come out now.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” He checks his face in the mirror. A little red around the eyes and the tip of his nose, but nothing he can do about it. He rubs at his eyes again to wipe away any trace of wetness and clenches his teeth together to keep his chin from wobbling. _Just hold it together long enough to get back to your apartment before you fall to pieces_ , he tells himself as he opens the door.

 

“C’mon, we’ll find another store.”

 

Another store? _No no no no._ “I want to go home,” he says in a small voice ( _don’t cry don’t cry dontcrydontcry_ )

 

Hill rolls her eyes. “You have to find some clothes before you can go home.”

 

“No, I mean _home_ home.” He can feel his chin wrinkle up, so he presses his lips together and jams his hands into his pockets as he heads toward the exit. Behind him, he hears Agent Hill’s quiet sigh, then the click of her heels catching up with him.

 

“Fuck it,” she mutters. “Fuck pushy salesladies and hundred dollar jeans with holes in them.” She raises her voice. “This place is a shithole,” she says loud enough that nearby customers raise their heads like startled rabbits. “I saw a rat in the dressing room. Ran right across my foot.” 

 

Steve watches her out of the corner of his eye. What on earth is she doing? She catches him looking and just raises her eyebrows at him innocently.

 

When they get to the sidewalk, Hill slides her arm through his, which startles him at first until he realizes she is probably doing it just to keep him moving across the street. “I could use a drink. How about you?”

 

He just sort of blinks at her. He can’t think very well with her touching him, so the question doesn’t really process. “Ma’am?”

 

“Will you cut out that ‘ma’am’ crap? You can call me by my first name.”

 

“I—I don’t actually know what your first name is.” They are at the car now, and he doesn’t remember crossing the street.

 

“It’s Maria. Nice to meet you.” She has stopped them at the driver’s side of the car, and now she lets go of his arm and takes a step back, obviously waiting. But for what—Oh! She’s letting him open the door for her!

 

With a half-grin, he pulls open the door and waits for her to enter, then closes it behind her. She immediately starts the engine, which gives him the sudden fear that it was all a ploy to drive off without him, so he hurries around to the passenger side and jumps in. She hits the gas before he can get his seatbelt buckled, and he falls against the door with a thud when she swerves out into traffic.

 

She glances over at him. “You ok?”

 

He rubs his shoulder where it impacted the door. “Yes, I’m fine. Just wasn’t expecting you to pull out that fast.”

 

Hill snorts. “I meant about that handsy saleslady. God, I wanted to slap her.”

 

_That’s_ what she was upset about? She was mad at the saleslady and not at him? “Oh. Um—I guess I’m glad you didn’t.”

 

“I was serious about that drink. Want one?”

 

“Alcohol doesn’t work on me. Because of the serum, I mean.”

 

“Well, then, _I_ need a drink. Let’s stop at that minimart. I’ll show you how to use your debit card.”

 

“Ok.”

 


	13. Unit 6: Not-so-independent Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie and snacks together. Much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience. It will be a while before the next chapter is posted because I haven't written it yet!

At the minimarket, Hill whips into the only parking spot on the right side of the street so he doesn’t have to cross against traffic. She pulls out her phone on the way in the store and taps at it _peck peck peck_ like a bird. He hopes she isn’t texting Howard Stark’s son again to tell him Steve was crying in the clothing store, but he’s afraid to ask.

 

Once inside, she grabs a basket and heads toward the refrigerated section with a purpose, but Steve stops and stares at the snacks longingly. He really wants to try Oreo cookies again. He remembers how good they tasted the few times he and Bucky could scrape together enough pennies to buy some. Now, of course, a package of about ten cookies costs almost THREE DOLLARS, because the twenty-first century is insane.

 

“Have you had Oreos?” Hill says from next to his elbow. He hadn’t even heard her coming back.

 

“Oh. Yeah, a few times. Usually didn’t have the money,” he replies apologetically. Why does he feel the need to apologize for being poor?

 

“Let’s get some.” Hill grabs a package and tosses it into the basket over her arm. “Oh! Nutter Butters! Have you had those?”

 

“Um, no.”

 

“Then you have to try them.” The package of peanut-shaped cookies hits the basket, along with something called “Fiery Habanero Doritos”, which, based on the flame design on the bag, look like they could burn the lining right out of your mouth. “Have you had these?”

 

“No.”

 

“Awesome. You’ll love them.” 

 

He doubts that, but he doesn’t say anything. Hill continues tossing snacks into the basket, until Steve finally reaches around her and chooses a Snickers bar, which is at least something he remembers. Oh, and Tootsie pops! He remembers those too. They used to hand them out to the soldiers because they wouldn’t melt. Helped him stay awake on night watches.

 

“Tootsie pops?” Hill says with her lip curled.

 

“Yes. I like them,” Steve rejoins defensively. “Or at least I did. Thought I liked bananas too, but turns out I don’t. Maybe being in the ice so long changed my tastebuds.”

 

“No, bananas have changed.” Hill leads the way to the refrigerated case, which is lined with bottles and bottles of beer. Steve scrambles to follow.

 

“They _have_?”

 

“Yeah. All of the old kind died out before I was born, so I guess I’ve never tasted your version of a banana.”

 

“They were good! And Twinkies were filled with banana flavored creme. Bucky and I split a pack once. One for each of us. Well, one and a half for Bucky and a half for me. He ate his faster then stole mine out of my hand.”

 

“Very touching story, gramps,” Hill intones, but she pauses on her way to the back of the store and snags a couple of packs of Twinkies to add to the basket.

 

After Hill chooses a six-pack of beer in green bottles, she hands him a six-pack of root beer. “Classic old people beverage.”

 

He turns a bottle over and reads the label, looking for sassafras, but instead finds mainly something called “high-fructose corn syrup” followed by a bunch of other unfamiliar ingredients, and far down the list, sarsaparilla, which he has at least heard of.

 

“Ok, let’s go,” Hill says, leading the way to the front of the store. Great, here comes the time when he gets to fumble around and be embarrassed by failing to use a debit card. Hill puts her basket on the counter, and he sets the six-pack of root beer down beside it while digging in his pocket.

 

“Remember which one it is?”

 

“Um. . . the blue one?”

 

“Nope. Red one.” She reaches around him and points to the red card, so he digs it out while the cashier rings up their purchases. Hill grabs the Doritos, Nutter Butters, and beer and sets them to the side. “I’ll pay for these, since I don’t think you’ll enjoy them as much as I will.”

 

“I can pay for it all. It’s fine.”

 

“Steve, you practically had a heart attack over paying a dollar to do laundry. I think I’ll pay for my own snacks.”

 

“But—“

 

“No arguing.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

As he holds the red card in his hand and waits for the cashier to finish ringing up his snacks, he notices out of the corner of his eye that Hill is walking away toward the back of the store again. He really hopes she comes back before the cashier announces the total, because she promised to help him figure out how to use the card. Maybe this is a test? Maybe she’s going to see if he can do it himself?

 

Just as the cash register beeps for the final item, Hill returns, but this time she is only carrying one bottle of beer instead of the six-pack, and she has exchanged the large bag of Doritos for a smaller bag. He raises his eyebrows at her, but she just shrugs and says, “I decided I wasn’t that hungry.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Well, that and payday isn’t until the 15th.”

 

He narrows his eyes at her. Maybe he’s not the only one who is having a heart attack about money.

 

“That’ll be $27.85,” the cashier says expectantly. Steve swallows down his bubble of panic at the total. _It’s just money, right?_ he tells himself as he looks down at the card. Now’s the part where he has to know what to do, and he still doesn’t. Hill is still standing a few steps back, obviously not intending to help, even though she said she would.

 

“Um. . .” Steve turns the card around, trying to figure out how to put it in the machine. No matter which way he turns it, it doesn’t look like the illustration.

 

Hill reaches around him and puts her hand over his, turns the card the right direction. “Swipe it like this,” Hill says, moving his hand toward the slot on the side of the machine. Dang, it’s hard to concentrate when she’s touching him.

 

With her help, he somehow manages to slide the card through the machine correctly, because it beeps and now the window says “Enter PIN”. Unfortunately he doesn’t think he would be able to replicate his performance because he was too distracted by her hand over his.

 

“Remember your pin number?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” He pushes the little buttons, and the machine beeps again. The cash register starts spitting out a paper receipt.

 

“Have a nice day,” the cashier says in a bored tone, holding out the bag of snacks and six-pack of root beer. Oh, that’s it? He did it? That really wasn’t nearly as hard as he thought it would be.

 

Hill pays for her beer, chips, and cookies with a five dollar bill and a handful of coins, then leads the way to the car. Steve follows slowly, trying to delay the inevitable, when she drops him off at his apartment and goes back to her exciting life, leaving him to try to fill up the rest of the empty hours by himself. Maybe he can get her to stick around long enough for him to try a Nutter Butter anyway. That would be better than nothing.

 

When they get to the curb, she goes to the car, but doesn’t get in as he is expecting. Instead she grabs her backpack out of the trunk and starts walking down the sidewalk toward his building. “Might as well leave the car there, right? Probably won’t find a closer spot. And it’s only one hour parking in front of your building anyway.”

 

He hustles to follow. “Oh! Um. Ok.” He’s not sure why she would need more than an hour of parking, but who knows why women do anything they do? Certainly not him.

 

“And you can practice crossing the street.”

 

“Yeah.” _Great_.

 

“The key is communicating with the drivers using hand signals.”

 

“Hand signals?” He hasn’t seen any hand signals. Maybe that’s what he’s been missing.

 

“Like this.” Hill steps out into the street and confidently crosses one lane, with him on her heels. When she steps into the next lane, an oncoming car honks at her. Steve jumps back, but she just flips the driver the bird and keeps going. “See? Hand signals. Easy.”

 

“Right,” he says, shaking his head, but he sticks close to her and they make it across the street without getting mowed down, so he can’t exactly fault her technique. “Crude but effective.”

 

“That’s my motto,” she says with a bright grin. “It’s a winning combination.”

 

“Definitely,” he replies drily.

 

He expects that when they get to his building she will say she has to go, but she doesn’t. Instead she follows him up the stairs. On the third floor, he unlocks the door to his apartment and stands back, and she walks in and kicks off her shoes inside the front door.

 

“I need to teach you how to write a check,” she says, pulling something out of her backpack. “Here’s your checkbook.”

 

“Ok.” Good, maybe he won’t be alone for a little while at least. He sets the bags down on the table, but she pushes them out of the way and sits with the checkbook in one hand and a pen in the other. He half-listens while she explains the ins and out of his bank account and what to write on the checks (mostly he’s watching the end of her pen, which looks thoroughly chewed, so maybe he’s not the only one with anxiety issues either), and then she sticks the pen in his hand.

 

“Ok, write a practice one.”

 

“Sure.” He takes the pen and writes “Maria Hill” in the line that says “Pay to the order of”.

 

“Ha ha, very funny.”

 

He ignores her and writes “$1000.00” in the section where the amount goes, then under it carefully writes out “One thousand dollars and no cents.”

 

“Here you go. Did I do it right?”

 

“Nicely done.” She takes the pen from his hand and writes VOID in big letters across the whole check. “Ok, now you know how to write a check. Easy-peasy—“

 

“—Lemon-squeezy,” he finishes for her. He’s disappointed she won’t take the check, but what did he expect?

 

Hill gets up from the table and picks up her backpack. Maybe he should have taken longer to learn how to write a check, because now he's facing another evening of loneliness and despair. Lovely. It would be worth a thousand dollars just to have some company for a while.

 

She digs around in her backpack and comes up with a handful of flat boxes. “I brought you something. Here, maybe these will be more your speed.” She drops the stack of boxes into his hand. 

 

Oh, they’re more movies! There’s Pinocchio, one called Finding Nemo with the most amazing colorful artwork of fish on the cover, something with a mermaid, and one that appears to be a retelling of the story of Aladdin. He wants to watch them all right now! But he still doesn’t know how to use the movie player. Maybe he can get Hill to show him before she heads back to work.

 

“Can you show me how to use the movie player again?” he asks.

 

“Sure. What do you want to watch?”

 

“How about this one? Finding Nemo.” He holds up the box with the fish.

 

“Sure. One of my favorites,” she says, grabbing the box from his hand on the way to the living room. “Go ahead and open some of those snacks.” She puts the movie in the player and flops down on the couch with the remote in her hand. So, is she. . . staying then?

 

“Um. . . what do you want?”

 

“Bring those spicy chips. I want to see your ears turn red again.”

 

“Oh. Ok.” He grabs the chips, and the Nutter Butters because she said they were good, and the Twinkies because he wants to try the new flavor, and her beer because she wanted one, and a root beer for himself, and carefully balances it all on his arm while he crosses to the couch. Hill reaches out and he thinks she will help him set it all down, but she just pulls the bag of chips out of his hand, opens it, and starts eating while pushing buttons on the remote. Okay.

 

He sets the rest of the food down on the coffee table and picks up the root beer, then realizes he has no bottle opener. He’ll have to open it with his hands, and then he’ll open hers, because he’s sure her hands aren’t strong enough.

 

While he is twisting at the small, slippery cap trying to break the seal, Hill picks up her beer, sets the top of the bottle against the edge of the table, and smacks it downward with the heel of her hand, neatly popping the cap off.

 

“Want me to open yours?” she says blithely.

 

“No, I got it,” he grunts, twisting harder because there’s no way he’s going to give up and try her trick. He’s a man, dammit, and he can open his own damn beer. . . _root_ beer. To his embarrassment, the cap is too small and his hands keep slipping. Finally he uses the hem of his shirt to help keep hold of it and twists until the cap comes off.

 

Hill smirks at him but doesn’t say anything; she just clinks her bottle against his and takes a gulp of beer. He takes a sip of root beer and finds it tastes very little like he remembers, but still pretty good, with bubbles that tickle his nose and throat.

 

“Ok, ready for Finding Nemo?”

 

“Sure.” He looks around for a place to sit. There’s the chair of course, but Hill has scooted over on the couch, and he’s not sure if she has just moved closer to the arm so she has something to lean her elbow on, or if she really means for him to sit there. If he guesses wrong, will she give him one of her looks and move to the chair to get away from him? Probably safer to take the chair just in case.

 

“Here, try these,” she says, holding out the bag of chips absently with one hand while pushing buttons on the remote with the other. He has to go to the couch to take the bag, and when he does, she scoots over a little more until it’s obvious she’s making room for him.

 

So he sits. 

 

And miracle of miracles she doesn’t give him a dirty look, just sinks back in the cushions and holds out the remote to him. “It’s the button that says ‘Enter’,” she says, reaching into the bag and pulling out a few bright orangey-red triangle-shaped chips.

 

He pushes the button. Nothing happens.

 

“Gotta point it at the TV.”

 

He turns the remote toward the TV and tries again. Still nothing.

 

“Other end.”

 

Steve glances at her, thinking she will be rolling her eyes, but she is just munching on chips and staring at the TV, so he turns the remote around and tries a third time, and finally the movie starts.

 

“There you go. Good job,” she says, like he’s a clever toddler, but at least her voice doesn’t sound annoyed or patronizing this time. He’ll take it. Anyway, he’s not thinking about it anymore because the artwork on this movie is incredible! It doesn't even look like a cartoon! How did they do that?!

 

“Eat chips,” Hill encourages him. Steve is so mesmerized by the movie that he reaches into the bag without looking, pulls out a handful of chips and tosses them into his mouth. About five seconds later he regrets it because his mouth is on fire. He coughs and gulps down root beer to try to put it out, but that only makes it worse.

 

While he is sputtering and choking, he hears Hill giggle. He looks up to find her grinning at his ears, which he’s sure are bright red. Great. Just great. Now his cheeks are hot from embarrassment, so they are probably red too.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Hill says as he washes down the chips with another swig of root beer and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Here, eat these instead.” She puts the Twinkies in his hand and sits back again.

 

He ends up not even opening the Twinkies, because he is so absorbed in the movie. He has to ask Hill to confirm that this is indeed animation, because it looks so real, and she starts in on some sort of monologue about “CGI” and “3-D techniques” that he can’t really follow, so he just tunes her out and watches the vibrant colors and natural movement of the fish, and then before he knows it, he’s caught up in the story as well, of everyone looking for this lost little fish, and he can’t help but draw the parallels to his own situation, except, well, without all the people searching, of course. And why should that matter to him? He was unconscious anyway. It’s not like he was anxiously waiting to be rescued, right? People had their own lives to live. He should understand that they didn’t have time to go tramping around the Arctic looking for an idiot who got himself lost. They all thought he was dead anyway. So it was fine. Really. Y _eah, keep telling yourself that, Rogers_.

 

About halfway through, he tears his attention away from the screen long enough to notice that Hill isn’t watching the movie, she’s watching _him_. He doesn’t know what to make of the expression on her face, so he pretends like he is glued to the movie and hasn’t noticed.

 

Nemo’s dad and the fish with the head injury are enlisting the help of pelicans to find his lost son when suddenly the movie freezes, like they used to in the theaters when something went wrong with the projector. He cuts his eyes to Hill and sees the remote in her hand. She’s still looking at him with a sort of sad smile. “You know Howard looked for you, right?”

 

That surprises him enough that he finally makes eye contact. “He did?”

 

“Yeah, for years. Tony says he was obsessed with trying to find you. Spent Tony’s entire childhood searching.”

 

“I didn’t know that.” He frowns at the frozen images on the screen.

 

“Hmpf. Fury and I are going to have a talk about those briefings he said he gave you.”

 

She starts the movie again and he goes back to watching, enjoying it a little more now that he knows at least someone looked for him, someone cared as much as Nemo’s dad did, although it sounds like Howard neglected his own son in the process. By the end of the movie, when they are reunited, Steve looks over at Hill again to share his enjoyment with her, and finds that she has fallen asleep with her head against the armrest. Oh.

 

So should he just leave her be? She’s not going to want to spend the night like that, he’s sure. It’s only mid afternoon and she probably has to be back at work at some point today.

 

“Agent Hill?” he says quietly. She doesn’t stir, so he says it again, a little louder. “Agent Hill?”

 

Hill’s eye cracks open. “I thought I told you to call me Maria,” she mumbles.

 

“Sorry, ma’am—I mean, Maria.”

 

She sits up and stretches, nearly hitting him in the shoulder. “So what did you think?”

 

“I liked it a lot! The art was gorgeous.”

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

“Yes, the colors were so vibrant! I don’t know how they got that saturation and depth. And those clean, organic lines! And the movement was so natural! And—“ He breaks off, because she is watching him with a funny smile that makes him think maybe she is laughing at him again.

 

“That’s sweet. You’re sweet.”

 

“Oh. Um. That’s. Um.” He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just stammers incoherently. His ears are hot—he’s sure they’re turning red again but he has no control over it.

 

“We need to find you some friends,” she says, unexpectedly.

 

Friends. _Friends would be good_ , he thinks, but then memories crowd in, of being the one standing on the sidelines in gym class while everyone else got chosen for teams. “I, uh, I was never very good at that.”

 

“Hmm.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and frowns at it, then pushes a button, drops the phone back into her pocket and pushes herself up off the couch. “I know a few people, but I’m not sure you’d like them. They’re a little much.”

 

“I might like them.” Steve stands up too and follows her to the door, where she puts on her shoes and picks up her backpack, so she’s leaving now. Well, at least he didn’t have to spend the _whole_ day alone.

 

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll see what I can do. See you tomorrow at 7. We’re going to hit the subway and see if you can figure out how to get around the city.”

 

“Ok, see you tomorrow. Thanks for watching a movie with me.” Steve stuffs his hands into his pockets. He can't quite make eye contact.

 

“It was fun for me too. Sorry for not giving you adequate warning about those chips.”

 

“It’s ok. I’m ok. Bye,” he says casually, like he won’t be sitting by the window waiting for her to return like a goddamn puppy.

 

She hefts her backpack onto her shoulder and heads out with a little wave. He waves at her receding back, then immediately feels stupid, drops his hand and pushes the door shut. Alone again. Not that he cares. He can take care of himself. He doesn’t need anyone. He’s fine alone.

 

Oh, who is he kidding? There’s no one around to try to fool anyway. He’s alone and it—what did Shauna say?—oh yeah, sucks. it sucks.

* * *

July 2, 2012

 

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Progress Report, Day 6

 

No progress to report. Did not buy one single piece of clothing. Related subject: is it possible to order an air strike on a clothing store in Brooklyn?

 

M.

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: Progress Report, Day 6

 

No. Where were you today? We had a team meeting at 2 on the T. project and I expected you there.

F.

* * *

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: Progress Report, Day 6

 

I was joking. Sorry about missing the meeting. Phil can catch me up. 

M.

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: Progress Report, Day 6

 

You’re my 2ic, not Phil. I expect you back tomorrow by 2.

F.

* * *

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Progress Report, Day 6

 

Noted. S. is lonely and he needs friends. Maybe we could introduce him to Barton? S. could be a good influence on him.

M.

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: Progress Report, Day 6

 

I’ll consider it. Maybe after this project is over.

 

F.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: clothes for S.

 

Ok, fine, I’ve decide to let you buy clothes for S. 

 

M.

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: clothes for S.

 

I thought you were going shopping?

 

P.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: clothes for S.

 

We tried but the stupid salesgirl couldn’t keep her hands off him. It was a mess. Retail isn’t going to work for him. Just stick to classic styles please.

 

M.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

No jodhpurs!

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

No suspenders!

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

No jeans with holes in them!

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

Shirts with an athletic cut. Pants one inch smaller in the waist and two inches longer than the last ones.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

Button-up shirts with button-down collars

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

Got it. Knee breeches and newsboy caps coming up.

 

P.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

PHIL!

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

I kid! I kid! Jeans and khakis in classic styles, no holes, waist 32, inseam 36. Button up shirts with button down collars, athletic cut. I didn’t order the last set, by the way. 

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

Then how do you know his sizes?

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Agent P. Coulson

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S.

 

I may have measured him while he was unconscious. No need to tell him that, of course.

* * *

To: Agent P. Coulson

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: clothes for S

 

Of course.

 

M.


	14. Unit 7: Getting around on the subway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that in the twenty-first century, the subway covers the entire New York Metropolitan area? Steve didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, shoot, I’ve written myself into a corner where I now have to pretend I know my way around the New York Subway system. Unfortunately, I’d be just as lost as Steve is. My apologies for any mistakes. Blame my research partner Google. ;-)

 

**Learning targets** : The student will

—Navigate by compass directions

—Never mind. Student will read a map app

—Never mind. The student will at least be able to follow verbal directions from the map app

—Ok, fine, at least be able to tell left from right

—Never mind on the direction thing. Just figure out some fucking landmarks

—Ok, never mind that either. Learn the subway line and stop that will get him home.

—Mind his own business and stay out of other people’s problems. No need to be a hero.

—Never mind on that either. Be a hero. And wipe the powdered sugar off his chin. It’s disgusting(ly cute).

* * *

 

 

July 3, 2012

 

Steve is already up and dressed before seven the next morning. He sits on his mother’s chair and forces his knee to stay still even though it wants to bounce with anxiety. She said they were going to learn how to use the subway today. The last time he was in New York, the subway only had two lines that covered the downtown core, but now, according to Google, it has multiple overlapping lines that criss-cross and wind their way throughout the entire metropolitan area. So many opportunities to get lost. . .

 

He hears a dinging sound like a doorbell, and he almost jumps up to answer the door before he realizes it was his phone making the sound. When he pulls it out of his pocket, the window is lit up.

 

**Text from:**

**Agent M. Hill**

 

_I’m out front. Come on out._

 

He looks out the window and sees her standing on the curb with her arms tightly folded. She is wearing jeans and a tank top instead of a jumpsuit, and flat sandals instead of her usual heels. Her hair is pulled back into a casual ponytail. It’s a good look for her, not that he’ll ever tell her that.

 

As soon as she sees him on the street, she rubs her hands together and says, “Ok, let’s get started.”

 

“Hello to you too, Maria.”

 

“What? Oh, right, hello, whatever. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and I have to be back by two today or Fury will have my hide. So we’re going to start at Bedford Station. I’m going to let you lead the way so you remember how to get there. It’s three blocks south.”

 

Yeah, that’s not going to help. But she’s just standing there watching him expectantly, so he looks up and down the street and tries to think which way might be south. The sun is visible just above the horizon so that must be east, but the road next to him doesn’t go any obvious compass direction based on that, so. . . um. . .

 

Finally he dithers long enough that she says “Why don’t we look at the map, ok?” 

 

“Ok.” He doesn't want to tell her that won’t help much either. 

 

She holds up her phone and starts pointing to the tiny screen and saying things that don’t make any sense, like “Bedford is on the L line, and Manhattan is uptown from here, see?” She points to the gray line, but there are lots of other colors and they all intersect and sometimes run parallel to each other and it’s all very confusing. “We could take the G line at Greenpoint or Nassau, but then we’d have to transfer to L anyway. It makes more sense to just get on at Bedford, even though it’s a longer walk.”

 

“Ok.”

 

“So go south three blocks.”

 

“Ok.” He looks around. Even after her little lecture, he still has no idea which way south might be.

 

After a moment, she sighs and says, “Left turn. South is to the left.”

 

“Right. I knew that.” He turns up the street toward the minimart, but she grabs his sleeve and hauls him back the other way.

 

“Other left.”

 

Oh.

 

Hill walks with her head bent over her phone. He’s not sure how she does it without looking where she’s going, but somehow she manages to thread her way around every obstacle. A block down, she glances up from her phone, gestures at a nondescript brick building and says, “There a gym there, if you’re interested.”

 

“Yes, definitely,” he replies. Finally, something to do with his time that doesn’t involve moping around his empty apartment.

 

“Great. I’ll get you a membership,” she says and keeps walking. He looks back at the gym, wishing he could go inside to check if they have punching bags. He’d much rather be spending the long, lonely evenings beating the hell out of a punching bag than beating himself up over things he can’t change.

 

For two more long blocks, she furiously pecks at her phone like a chicken while he tries to think of a way to get a conversation started that won’t make him sound like an idiot. Nothing comes to mind, of course.

 

Finally, in the middle of the next block, she stuffs the phone in her pocket and says “Ok, Bedford station entrance is across the street. We’ll cross the street here. Remember your hand signals?”

 

“I’m not going to flip someone off.”

 

She shrugs. “Suit yourself. You go first.”

 

Luckily traffic is backed up and the cars are nearly stopped, so he manages to get across without getting killed, then he looks back and smirks at her. “What’s taking you so long?” he calls. She flips him off, but she’s smiling while she does it.

 

She shows him how to pay for the subway, and how to use the turnstiles, and which way to go to catch the train he wants. Luckily she leads the way, because Uptown? Downtown? Shouldn’t “downtown” mean the center of the city? He’s never going to remember this.

 

When they get off the subway at 14th Street, it’s like they’ve entered a different world. Huge skyscrapers line the streets in both directions. Steve cranes his neck upward, gawking at them all in awe, until Hill laughs and pulls his arm.

 

“Empire State Building right there,” she says, pointing to one of the taller ones, “and that’s Stark Tower.” She points past Empire State to another, even taller building in the distance, with the huge, stylized S on the side in huge letters, and now he can see that the rest of the name is there too: STARK. So Junior is as humble as his old man, then. 

 

“We only have a little while to look around,” Hill says, pulling his arm a little faster, so he follows, almost tripping over his own feet because he’s too busy looking up. “But first, coffee.”

 

She leads him into a small, crowded coffee shop, and orders him something called an “iced caramel macchiato” before he can tell her no. He gives her a look, but she just shoves the drink into his hands and says “Try it!” So he does. And it’s. . . amazing.

 

“See? Told you you’d like it.”

 

“Still not worth four dollars,” he says under his breath, but he keeps drinking. Each sip is better than the last. So good. Not that’s he’ll admit that to her.

 

“Five dollars here,” she says blithely on her way out the door. He almost chokes on his next sip. Better slow down—this cup of coffee cost more than dinner for two (WITH wine) at Luigi’s and _what is this world coming to?_

 

Hill takes him on a pointless grand tour of the subway system of New York, pointless because every time they come out of a station, he turns the wrong direction no matter how hard she tries to teach him. Concepts like east and west just aren’t going to work for him, and there are no landmarks to help him figure out which way to go. Bucky was always good at getting around, even without a compass. He claimed it was because he had a lot of iron in his nose, which was laughable but somehow he made it work for him. Bucky would just _know_ where he was and which way to go, and Steve would follow him. Now, without Bucky and without any familiar landmarks, Steve is lost, in more ways than one, he thinks.

 

Their rapid-fire tour is soon over. Just as he’s about to suggest lunch, Hill says, “Ok, we gotta get back. I can't be late to my meeting this afternoon.”

 

“What’s the meeting about?” he asks, taking the last sip of his now-lukewarm and watery coffee. Hers is long gone, but he has been drinking slowly to savor every drop.

 

“Some super-secret project with a bunch of scientist dudes,” she says as she leads the way back into the 14th street station. “You’ll probably hear about it at some point.”

 

He wants to ask her more, but she just shrugs and keeps going, so he doesn’t press it. He wonders what she meant by saying he’ll hear about it. Fury hasn’t told him a word about what they might want him to do next, if anything.

 

The subway is considerably more crowded than it was on their morning ride, with only a few seats remaining empty. Steve expects Hill will drop into a seat, but she grabs a handrail and stands beside him, not seeming to be bothered in the least that men are sitting when she is not. Steve doesn’t like it, but if she doesn’t mind, he’s better off not saying anything.

 

At the next stop, a large crowd of people get on. Several men get up and offer their seats to ladies, which improves Steve’s mood a little. By the time everyone has squeezed in and the seats have been shuffled around, most of those sitting are either women or elderly people, which is as it should be, Steve thinks. The only exceptions are one young man sitting next to where Steve is standing, and another a couple of rows away. The young man, who is staring at his phone on his lap, has something in his ears, like little shells attached to wires. He is wearing a backwards Yankees cap, oversized jacket despite the warm day, and baggy jeans. Steve wonders if he realizes that they are riding low enough to show off his underwear. Should he tell him? Probably not, he decides. No one else is saying anything. Agent Hill, who is crowded up nearly under Steve’s armpit, obviously sees it, but she hasn’t mentioned it.

 

When they get to the next stop, a woman gets on, hugely pregnant. She is wearing a long dress and headscarf, and she is carrying two shopping bags, one over each arm. She squeezes in next to Steve and takes the hand rail with a weary sigh. Steve frowns down at the young man, who hasn’t moved from his seat. This seems, to him, the very height of rudeness, but again, no one else mentions it. The car jostles and the woman sways on her feet, takes a step to keep her balance, and nearly drops one of her shopping bags.

 

Ok, that’s it. Steve taps the young man on the shoulder, which causes him to glance up from his phone for the first time.

 

“Hey, fella, give the lady your seat.”

 

“Huh?” the young man says, pulling the little shell from his ear so it dangles on the wire. 

 

“I said get up and give the lady your seat.”

 

The young man gives the woman a dismissive glance. “Why should I? I was here first.”

 

Steve blinks at him. That’s the stupidest, most selfish argument he ever heard. “She needs a seat,” he points out slowly and clearly, “so _get up_.”

 

“Fuck off,” the man says, tucking the little shell back into his ear.

 

All right, that’s enough. Steve catches hold of the collar of the young man’s jacket and hauls him bodily out of his seat. The man stumbles back a step and runs into Hill, who nudges him back upright with her shoulder.

 

“Ma’am,” Steve says to the woman, “your seat.”

 

The woman doesn’t move. For a long moment there is complete silence in the subway car. Steve looks around and notices everyone is staring at him, menacingly he thinks. He looks to Hill for help, but she quickly turns away with her hand over her mouth. 

 

_Oh shit_ , he has messed up big time. 

 

He realizes he is still holding onto the man’s collar, so he quickly releases him. The man gestures to the other seated young man, and they both slink off through the crowd of people, who are all still staring at Steve in dead silence.

 

The woman wordlessly drops into the seat. No one else moves. Keeping his head still, Steve silently surveys the crowd with just his eyes, calculating his odds. If they all attack him at once, can he defend himself without hurting any of the women and children? There is a large man standing across the aisle glaring at him with what he takes to be open hostility. That’s probably the biggest threat.

 

While he keeps the man in his line of sight, he warily monitors the woman in his peripheral vision. She is rummaging through her bags, maybe trying to distract him? Or looking for a weapon? Hill is still turned away from him. Will she defend him or stay out of it? Every sense is on high alert, ready for the upcoming fight.

 

He feels a tap on his elbow and almost drops into a defensive crouch before he realizes it is the woman. She is holding something out to him— _a knife_? No, it’s. . . an open package of cookies? _What_?

 

Smiling, she gives the package a little shake and holds it closer to his hand. Does she want him to. . . take one? It looks like it, but he isn’t sure he trusts his senses. He glances up at Hill and discovers that she has turned back toward him. She still has her hand over her mouth, but her eyes are crinkled up like she’s hiding a smile. Is she angry or not? He raises his eyebrows at her, silently asking for guidance. 

 

She drops her hand and now he sees the smile. “Go ahead. I think you’ve earned a cookie.” So. . . she's not angry?

 

“Um. Ok. Thank you, ma’am,” he says to the woman, taking a cookie from the package. She doesn’t say anything, but her face dimples in an enormous grin. And then she starts offering cookies to other passengers, who take them with a smile, and suddenly everyone is laughing and talking like they’ve been friends for life. 

 

The big man he had taken for a threat slaps him on the shoulder and says “That’s what I’m talking about!”

 

Steve has no idea what he means, but it’s apparently fine, because the man is smiling and eating a cookie, and it’s hard to start a fight when you’re eating a cookie. Steve takes a bite of his cookie and ends up with powdered sugar all over his hands and face. It’s like no cookie he’s ever tasted, but it’s delicious.

 

Hill, who has powdered sugar on the tip of her nose, leans in and says in his ear, “Will you please stop being so adorable? It’s making it very hard for me to hate this assignment.” Smirking, she raises her hand and swipes at his chin with her thumb.

 

Steve’s ears heat up. Trying to suppress an embarrassed smile, he wipes the powdered sugar from her nose because turnabout is fair play. She ducks her head and grins too, wiping at her own nose with her cheeks turning red. Maybe “Operation Get Agent Hill to like me” is going better than he thought. 

 


	15. Unit 7: Getting around on the subway, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns how to stay out of a fight. No, wait, no he doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chappie, folks. I hope you enjoyed the ride. And as always, I'd love love LOVE to read your comments!

Steve is feeling pretty good by the time they get to his stop. Hill still has a trace of powdered sugar on her nose that she doesn't seem to know about. It makes him smile every time he looks at her, which earns him some pretty funny looks, but there's no way he's going to tell her about it. Let her find out when she looks in the mirror tonight.

They come out of the subway station and Steve immediately turns to his right, but Hill grabs his arm and hauls him back the other way.

"North, remember?"

 _No_. "Sure. North. I knew that."

Hill snorts. "Sure you did. Come on, my meeting is in an hour and it'll take me at least thirty minutes to drive there."

As they head off down the street, Steve hears a man's voice calling, "Hey, Lady!"

Steve swivels his head, looking for the source of the voice, but Hill just keeps her eyes straight ahead and keeps walking. Her fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on Steve's bicep.

"Hey, zorra!" the voice calls again, louder this time. "Bitch, you gonna talk to me?"

Steve spots the speaker this time, lounging against the side of a building—Yankees cap, baggy pants hanging down around his knees—it's the young man from the train, and his friend is standing next to him with his arms folded. Apparently the idiot didn't learn the first time, so Steve will have to present the lesson a different way.

He shakes free of Hill's hand and veers over to confront them. "Hey, you really need to learn how to talk to ladies," he says, hands balled up and ready for a fight. The two young men straighten up and take a step toward him. He thinks he'll take out the one on the left first—with those baggy pants, he'll go down easy, then Steve can take on his somewhat taller friend.

Suddenly Hill is in front of him, with her hand on his chest. "Nope, nope. Back up. Not gonna happen."

"They called you a name," Steve points out, reasonably.

"I don't care. Seriously."

"Yeah, that's right, pendejo, listen to your mommy," the man laughs.

"Let me fight," Steve says in an undertone to Hill. "He can't treat women like that."

"No," Hill says firmly. She turns to the two men and says, "Lo siento, mi amigo se callo en la cabeza cuando era nino," which causes them to burst into laughter. Steve doesn't speak Spanish, but he's pretty sure Hill just insulted him.

"Come on, soldier, let's move." Hill heads back down the street, leaving Steve no choice but to follow. Their hoots of laughter and rapid-fire Spanish float after him.

"What did you say to them?"

Hill shrugs.

"If you just insulted me, I think I deserve to know."

"I said his mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberry." She starts walking faster, so Steve steps up the pace too to keep up.

"That's not true. What did you really say? I need to know what to expect if I see them again, which is likely, given that this is my neighborhood."

Hill sighs. "Ok, fine. I told them you were dropped on your head as a child."

"What? Why? You should have let me fight. I could take them."

"Yeah, I know you could, and so could I, but do you know how much paperwork that would generate?" She turns down an alleyway, which is different from the way they came. When he pauses at the entrance to the alley, she says "Come on, this way is faster."

He doesn't like it, but he follows anyway because he's not going to let her go there alone. "You don't want to fight because you're afraid of paperwork?"

"I'm not afraid of it; I just don't like it. There's a difference. And you haven't seen the pile of paperwork I have to do after every engagement. It's quite the deterrent."

"He needed to be taught a lesson. He can't treat women like that."

Hill's lips purse. "I know, and I agree with you, but there are other ways to get your point across."

He steps in front and turns toward her. "But you didn't get your point across at all!"

Hill stops dead. Steve thinks she's going to argue further, but she's looking over his shoulder. When Steve turns to check why, he sees the two young men again, blocking their path.

"Oye, puta, what are you doing with a cabron like this?" the man says.

Steve glances at Hill, wondering if she'll let him fight now. He doesn't know exactly what some of those words mean, but he's sure they're not compliments, for either of them. She just looks annoyed, not frightened or angry, as she keeps her eyes trained straight ahead and tries to keep walking without acknowledging them. The man in the Yankees cap moves so he is standing directly in her way.

"Come on, pretty lady, talk to me. Or are you just his whore?"

Steve isn't going to let that one pass without a fight. "Hey, don't talk to a lady like that!" he says, moving into the man's space. The man's friend steps forward too, and Steve shifts his attention to him long enough to see that his hands are balled up into fists. Steve's pretty sure he can take both of them at once. He just needs to angle his body enough to get between the men and Hill so she'll be safe.

"Oh, yeah? What are you going to do about it, pendejo?" the man sneers, pushing Steve in the arm. Steve reacts on instinct and training, and the man goes flying through the air and lands on his backside on the concrete. He jumps back up again immediately, stumbling a little to catch his footing.

"Why did you have to do that?" Hill says. She STILL doesn't want him to fight?  _Come on!_ Steve opens his mouth to protest, when he realizes that Hill is looking at the other man, not at Steve, and also that the man has a knife in his hand dripping with blood. A burning sensation draws his attention to his own arm, and when he looks down, he discovers blood dripping from a gash in his bicep.

There is a blur of movement in his periphery, and by the time Steve figures out what is going on, the man is on his knees, holding his wrist and whimpering, and the knife is in Hill's hand. Another blur of movement announces the departure of his companion.

"God, I hate paperwork." Hill wipes the knife on her pantleg, flips it shut and tucks it into her pocket.

The man makes a little whining sound.

"Oh, shut up, you're fine. Don't be such a baby."

Steve presses his hand over the gash in his bicep and tries to breathe very quietly so Hill won't turn that irritation on him, but it's too late. She shakes her finger his direction.

"You shut up too. You're not off the hook either." A drop of blood slides off her thumb and splashes onto the concrete. "Goddammit! Ouch." She sticks her thumb into her mouth and presses the pad against her teeth, then pulls it out and glares at it as if she can intimidate the cut into healing itself.

"So, should we call the police?" Hill asks the man, who shakes his head vehemently. "Ok, then can we just pretend this never happened?"

That gets her a nod, and Hill's expression of relief is almost comical. "Good. Very good."

The man doesn't move. Hill sticks her thumb back in her mouth and shoos him away with her other hand. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of here."

The man scrambles to his feet, holding his wrist tightly against his chest, and takes off without a backward glance. Hill shakes her head and turns to Steve. "How's your arm?" she asks around her thumb.

"It's ok. It'll heal. How's your thumb?"

"Meh," she says, pulling out her thumb and inspecting it, "I've had worse. Doesn't need stitches."

If this were seventy years ago, Steve would have a handkerchief in his pocket that he could offer her, but now he doesn't because the twenty-first century is stupid and inferior in every way, even though they have things like Google and delicious coffee. "Try putting pressure on it," he suggests.

Hill rolls her eyes, even though he was just trying to be helpful. "Thanks, doc," she says, but she wraps the fingers of her left hand around her right thumb anyway. As she walks past him, she mumbles something that sounds like "mansplaining", which isn't even a word. Maybe he should tell her that? Probably not.

When they get out to the next street, Steve starts out confidently to the left. Hill sighs. "Good grief. This way, genius."

"I knew that."

One more block and they pass the gym, in the brick building with the blue awning, so Steve knows where he is now. Just two more blocks to home (well, not  _home_  home, but the closest he's got).

It's nearly one when they get back to Hill's car. She opens the door and climbs into the driver's seat without a word. He isn't surprised that she's leaving already, since she did say she had to hurry off to a meeting. She hasn't mentioned anything for tomorrow yet. He hopes it's not a second try at clothes shopping. He'd rather be tortured by Hydra.

Steve starts to close the door for her, but she catches it and pushes it back open, then she's climbing out with a small red bag in her good hand. "Come on, let's get you patched up. You won't get your deposit back if you bleed all over those hardwood floors."

"I'm fine. Don't you have to get ready for your meeting?"

She makes a face. "Fury can just wait. It's not like this project is the end of the world."

"Yes, ma'am."

Between carrying the kit and keeping pressure on her thumb, Hill has no hands left to open the doors, so Steve lets them into his apartment. When he stands back to hold the door for her, Hill drops her backpack in the entryway and heads directly toward the bathroom.

"Ok, shirt off and have a seat," she says, pointing to the closed lid of the toilet. She sets the kit down on the edge of the counter and opens it one-handed.

"I'm fine, really. It'll heal on its own."

"You don't know what was on that knife." She sets out a cotton ball, opens a little bottle and pours some liquid onto it, then turns to him. "Why are you still standing there?"

"Oh, sorry." He peels off his shirt, awkwardly because there is barely enough room in there for the two of them and he doesn't want to accidentally hit her in the face, then carefully edges around her and sits on the toilet seat. He is embarrassed to be sitting there shirtless while she is touching him, but she doesn't even seem to notice. Her hands are all business while she swabs out the cut with the cotton ball. She still has her left thumb tucked inside her fist, but it doesn't slow her down. In short order she has the cut cleaned out, then opens a package of bandages open and lays them out ready to apply.

"Try to relax," she says without looking at his face. "These won't work right if the muscle is flexed."

"Um, ok." Yeah, relax, while shirtless in a bathroom with a beautiful woman practically sitting on his lap. Easier said than done. He closes his eyes and concentrates, tries to ignore her hand against his bare arm, the press of her thigh against his knee. Think about baseball. Think about sneaking into Ebbets' field with Bucky to watch the Dodgers play. He should have asked Hill to take him there this week. Maybe there'd be a game on. He could even afford to buy a ticket now.

Finally she grunts, "Better," and he feels her fingers pressing against his bicep. When he looks down he sees several small bandages all lined up, holding the cut closed as neatly as stitches. "There. Good as new."

It would be good as new anyway in about an hour, but he's not going to tell her that. As she starts cleaning up the supplies, he notices that there is a line of blood running down the inside of her palm from her thumb. "Hey," he says, catching hold of her hand. "What about you?"

"I'm fine. It's almost stopped bleeding." She keeps cleaning up with the other hand.

"Sure it has." He stands up and points toward the toilet seat. "You sit."

"Really?" She rolls her eyes, but she sits, and lets him clean out the cut, which is not too deep. The edges stay together when he presses on them, so she's probably right that it doesn't need stitches. He opens a bandage and applies it to the wound, then wraps it all up neatly in gauze and applies tape to hold it in place. His movements are smooth, automatic. He field dressed wounds many times during his time with the Commandoes, usually in worse lighting than this. Once he treated a bullet to Gabe's ankle while the firefight was still going on. At night, with a flashlight held between his teeth.

"There. Leave the bandage on for at least four hours."

"You've done that before, haven't you?"

"Um, yeah, a few times. It's easier when no one is shooting at me," he finishes awkwardly while he starts stuffing the supplies back into the kit. Where is Gabe now? Does he still have a scar on his ankle?  _Most likely he's dead_ , Steve's stupid brain reminds him. Now there's a mood killer.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, fine. Everything's fine." He puts the kit into her hand without making eye contact and heads down the hall to get his extra shirt from his bedroom. The files are still sitting there on the coffee table. He hasn't worked up the courage to look at them yet.

As he emerges from the bedroom still pulling the shirt over his head, Hill says, "Now you only have one shirt."

He looks up to see her leaning against the doorway to the bathroom, arms folded. "Are you going to make me go shopping again tomorrow?"

"Uh, no, sorry. Today's the last day, remember?"

 _Last day?_  Did she already tell him that? What is he supposed to do now? "Oh. Right."

"Sorry. You're welcome to go shopping on your own."

"Ok." Sure, that's fine. He'll be fine on his own now. He knows how to get around (mostly). He can use a debit card, and ride the subway. He can keep himself occupied. Maybe Google can tell him how to get back to the library for more books, and he can even check them out on his own. He doesn't need anyone's help. Alone is ok. He survived being alone after his mother died. Well, not completely alone. At that time he had Bucky, and now Bucky is gone. . .

"Steve? Are you really ok?"

He chews on the inside of his lip to stop that train of thought, because he knows where it's headed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. You have an important meeting to get to, right?"

She fixes him with a skeptical look. "Right. I'm just going to use your bathroom, and then I'll go."

"Yeah, ok."

She disappears into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. Steve stands there looking around the room trying to find something to distract himself from the dark thoughts that are crowding in, and sees his sketchbook where he left it next to his chair. He picks it up and flips back the cover to the drawing of Hill, sitting at his table smiling her real smile. Is that how she sees herself? Does she know that's how he sees her now?

Hill's backpack is sitting by the door where she left it, with one of the pockets half-open. He looks back and forth between the drawing and the backpack until he finally makes his decision, tears the page from the sketchbook and folds it in half. On his way to the backpack, he notices his checkbook, still sitting on the table. Impulsively he grabs it and hurriedly writes out a check to Maria Hill for $1000. Then he tucks the check inside the drawing, slides them both down in the side pocket of her backpack and zips it up.

Steve is leaning casually against the wall when Hill comes out of the bathroom. She picks up her backpack and hefts it onto her shoulder, then lingers with her hand on the doorknob. "Well, I guess I'll see you around, right? You can text me. Or call me if you'd prefer."

"Sure."

"You could go to the gym," she suggests, "or ride the subway. I can get you a MetroCard."

"I've got plenty to do." Wallowing, for example. He's got hours of that left to do. Getting lost, getting hit by cars while trying to cross the street, so many things on his to-do list.

"Maybe—maybe you could meet Barton. I think Fury called him in for the project we're working on."

"Yeah, that would be great," he says, brightening.

"I'll see what I can do after we meet with Selvig today."

"Selvig?"

"Scientist type. A little nuts if you ask me, but whatever. Not my place to judge. Oh, and you coulda told me I had powdered sugar on my nose."

"Sorry, I didn't notice," he lies, but he can't help the little grin that tugs up the corner of his mouth.

"Huh." She opens the door and steps out, then throws back "bye" and a little wave over her shoulder. He waves to her back but she doesn't turn around to see it.

After he closes the door behind her, he sits down in his mother's chair and gives himself a pep talk. He'll be fine, right? He's been alone before. He can do this. He knows how to do this. It won't be fun, but he'll keep busy, keep himself distracted.

Speaking of keeping busy, there are breakfast dishes in the sink and his stomach is reminding him he hasn't had lunch yet. Those are two things he can fix right now. He fixes ravioli with sausage and ricotta, cleaning up as he goes. The smell takes him right back to being seventeen again, and Mrs. Bianchi from upstairs knocking at their door to bring them a meal when his ma was too sick to cook.

While he is eating it, he hears the sound of the buzzer for the front door of the building. It startles him at first, then he thinks maybe he should ignore it, because who would be coming to visit him? The only candidate is Agent Hill, and she knows how to get in the building by herself.

The buzzer sounds again, so he wipes his mouth, goes down the three flights of stairs, and peeks out the window next to the door. A man in a delivery uniform is standing outside, holding one of those devices that look like a large phone. Next to his feet are two rather large boxes. Steve can see from the tags that they are addressed to him.

He opens the door and says "Hello?"

"Are you Steve Rogers?"

"Yes," he says hesitantly. He isn't expecting any deliveries. He isn't expecting  _anything, since no even knows he exists_.

"Delivery for you sign here please," the man says all in a rush, shoving the device into his hand. Steve knows how to sign those now, so he does, awkwardly with his finger, on the line the man indicates. "Here you go enjoy." The man puts the boxes in his arms and hurries back to his truck, leaving Steve staring after him, perplexed. He takes the boxes inside and sets them in his living room, and examines the labels, but they don't yield any information other than a return address, 21 Mercer, which doesn't tell him much.

He gets a kitchen knife and gingerly slits open the tape on the top box, ready to jump back if anything dangerous is inside, but all he encounters is tissue paper with something soft underneath. When he pulls the tissue paper away, he discovers leather in a rich brown. He carefully lifts it from the box and holds it up—it's a leather jacket, in almost the exact style of the one he lost, except single-breasted instead of double, and without the rip on the sleeve. Steve can barely breathe, it's so. . . perfect. As he opens the zipper to try it on, a piece of paper floats out. It is a packing slip, with a note hand-written across it.

_07/03/2012_

_Happy birthday! I know this can't replace the one you lost, but I hope it will make you smile. And you're welcome for saving you a shopping trip._

_M. H. (with a little help from Phil)_

Happy birthday? Is it—Oh! Fourth of July, his birthday, is tomorrow. 07/04—that's what that code means, on the door and on his phone. It's his birthday and someone actually remembered (even though he didn't)!

He pulls the jacket on and it fits perfectly, even better than the one he lost. The leather is super-soft and warm, with a lining that feels like a hug.

Without taking off the jacket, he opens the other box and discovers clothes—dark jeans without holes, khakis, button-up shirts in plaids and stripes, socks, underwear, t-shirts, shoes, even pajamas in a blue and white stripe. He tries on a pair of pants and they fit perfectly as well. He can even sit down without them bunching or feeling constrictive.

He lays out all of the clothes in neat piles on the bed and just blinks at them. So many clothes he won't have to do laundry for a week. Someone—Agent Hill and "Phil"—knew him well enough and cared enough to shop for him and actually buy clothes he would like. Agent Hill remembered about the leather jacket and went out of her way to find one to replace it.

His eyes are a little blurry as he pulls out his phone and sends a text to Agent Hill, typing it out because he doesn't trust the voice text thing.

**Thank yuo for the clothed.**

Shoot!

**I mean thank you for the clothes.**

The reply doesn't come until that evening, after he has finished dinner and washed up the dishes and cleaned all the things and finished the last of the Lord of the Rings and drawn sketches of everyone he ever knew (except Bucky; he still can't quite get his hand to draw Bucky) and is so bored he's seriously considering gouging his eyes out. The ding of his phone surprises him so much he almost drops it on the floor trying to grab it from the side table.

_You're welcome! Does the jacket fit?_

He looks down at the jacket, which he hasn't taken off since he first tried it on, even though it's much too warm for the day.  _Yes. its perfect._

**Great. Happy birthday!**

_Thanks._

He types out  _I didn't even remember_ , and then deletes it without sending because he doesn't want her to think he's senile as well as an idiot. She doesn't text again.

It's dark out now so he might as well go to bed. It's not like he has anything else to do. He goes into the bedroom and stares at the as-yet-unslept-in bed, which is still covered with piles of new clothes. He could move all the clothes and sleep there. He could even put on the pajamas, but it's easier just to strip off his pants and wrap up in his blanket on the floor, still wearing the jacket.

Maybe tomorrow he'll look at those files. Maybe tomorrow he'll cross the street and go into that mini-market and buy something by himself. Maybe tomorrow he'll call the store and get the right chair. Maybe tomorrow he'll try sleeping in the bed.

Maybe tomorrow he'll draw Bucky.

Oh, who is he kidding? He's not going to do any of those things. He's going to go to that gym and beat the shit out of a punching bag. Tomorrow.

* * *

July 3, 2012

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Progress report, day 7

He's not ready, but he's bored and needs friends NOW, so let's introduce him to some people and start him out slowly. He still needs a little hand-holding crossing the street and finding his way around, but

* * *

_This message has not been sent yet. Are you sure you want to delete it?_

**Yes**  No

* * *

July 3, 2012

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Progress report, day 7

He's ready. I recommending introducing him to some people and starting him out slowly. Coulson and Barton would be good choices.

M.

* * *

To: Deputy Director M. Hill

From: Director N. Fury

Subject: Re: Progress report, day 7

I'll take it under consideration. I have an idea in mind for him.

N.

* * *

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 7

If you throw him straight into the deep end, Fury, so help me god, I'll gouge out your other eye so you

* * *

_This message has not been sent yet. Are you sure you want to delete it?_

**Yes**  No

* * *

To: Director N. Fury

From: Deputy Director M. Hill

Subject: Re: re: Progress report, day 7

Noted

M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you want to see what happens next, go watch the deleted scenes from Avengers Assemble. But first, hit the button below and leave a kudos or comment! 
> 
> OH! AND! Someone leaked a (crappy) bootleg cell phone video of the Infinity War trailer from SDCC. Google "Monkeys fighting robots" to find the link.


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